Weekend in Denver

Mike and I just spent a really lovely weekend in Denver -- I guess it was a mini-"babymoon" (who knew that was a thing?).

We saw a theatre production of Lois Lowry's The Giver, which is one of the best YA books of all time.

The book was published 20 years ago, long before the recent rage for dystopian YA novels. It's set in a future where people live in a conflict-free society, but live with no choices and very limited feelings. Everything is very controlled -- there is no sunlight and no color. Seeing the play on stage was not as powerful as reading the book, but there were interesting elements (such as the lack of color) that were really striking in that visual medium.

We stayed overnight in Denver so that we could go to the opening day of a Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, but we failed to purchase tickets in advance. The event was totally sold out for the day, so we didn't get to see the exhibit. We did, however, enjoy other parts of the museum, especially an exhibit titled "When I Last Wrote to You about Africa" by El Anatsui.

Summer 2012

Autumn on UW campus -- so beautiful!

Autumn is here, with red leaves and cooler temperatures. I didn't share much here about the summer that followed our trip to Europe in May, so here's a round-up of some of our trips and activities.

• We want to all of the Snowy Range Theatre productions; my favorite was "Always . . . Patsy Cline," but we also really liked "Santaland Diaries."
• I went to the American Library Association's annual meeting. This year it was in Anaheim (I didn't do any Disney-related stuff, though).
• We went to local parades and 4th of July celebrations.



Melissa walked with the Albany County Democrats in the Jubilee Days parade

• We spent a weekend with my family in Idaho and saw my brother Nick, recently returned from two years in Seattle.
• Celebrated Mike's 33rd birthday!

Birthday present!

• Had visitors from Albuquerque! Mike's brother, Bob, and his family came for a few days.

Here's Isaac and Uncle Mike, going for a hike at Vedauwoo. So cute!

• Had visitors from Idaho! My mom and brother Nick came over Labor Day weekend.

We're going to spend the autumn working hard (fall semester is the busiest), traveling to conferences, and getting ready for the baby girl to join us!

Baby growth

It's amazing to think how many times our tiny baby has doubled in size over the past 4 1/2 months. Here are some pictures documenting our shared growth:

5 weeks

10 weeks

12 weeks -- this is when I started to note a difference!

15 weeks -- this is when others started to note a difference.

18 weeks

20 weeks - half-baked!

Big News

We couldn't be happier to share the news: we're expecting a baby! He or she is due on January 8, 2013. We'll find out whether it's a girl or a boy in August.

Here's one of our baby's first pictures, taken on June 7th. (Heart rate 171 bpm)

At our prenatal check-up today, the heart rate was about 160. Pregnancy has treated me pretty well so far, without much sickness or discomfort (knock on wood). We're beginning the second trimester now and we're busy preparing a baby bedroom; narrowing down a list of potential names; reading lots of stuff about fetal development, pregnancy, and childbirth; and generally feeling really excited to be parents.

London & Reykjavik

This is it, the final blog post documenting our 18-day trip to Europe. Our trip was book-ended with brief stops in London: an afternoon at Windsor Castle at the very beginning of our trip before we flew to Paris, and at the end of our trip we spent an evening and a day in London. Our last day in Europe was in Reykjavik, Iceland. We hadn't planned to visit Iceland, but IcelandAir just started offering flights out of Denver, and they had the lowest fares. We were happy to get a glimpse of one more country on our European tour!

London, Part 1

Windsor Castle is an official royal residence, and it has been a royal home and fortress for over 900 years -- still in operation today! The Queen uses parts of the Castle as a private home, where she usually spends the weekend, and as a place for formal royal duties. Of course, the parts of the castle that the public can tour do not include the Queen's bedroom. 

Here's the guard who prevents tourists from seeing the Queen's closet.

London, Part 2

Our favorite part of the time we spent in London was seeing a production of "Singin' in the Rain." It was so much fun -- great music, fabulous dancing, and rain on the stage!

For our one full day in London, we did a hop-on/hop-off double-decker bus tour and sightseeing river tour down the Thames. 

Eye of London & Big Ben clocktower

The Tower of London

Westminster Abbey

Tower Bridge

Buckingham Palace (where we saw preparations for the Queen's Jubilee)

And we made a super-quick stop at the British Museum, especially to see the Rosetta Stone

Reykjavik 
We landed at the Reykjavik airport around midnight, and it looked like the sun was setting. Iceland is so far north that at the end of May there was hardly any "night" at all.

Midnight sunset

Keflavik harbor

Reykjavik city pond 

I ate yogurt in every country we visited, and Iceland's was the best.

Road Trip Part 3: The Lake District

 Part of our road trip with Jacob, Rachel, and Gavin, was to visit England's Lake District. One of our first stops in the Lake District was a town called Cockermouth, which is William Wordsworth's birthplace.

While in Cockermouth, we visited Wordsworth's childhood house (pictured above). 

While inside the Wordsworth house, Melissa played a harpsichord, which was a replica of a Handel harpsichord, and we learned more about some of the daily life of an 18th Century household. 

 In the Lake District, we also saw animals. Highland cattle and sheep are pictured above, and...

Lakes! 

Above is a view of Lake Buttermere, and below is a closeup of the stone wall at Lake Buttermere. 

We took a lovely hike at Buttermere with Rachel, Jacob, and Gavin. Below is a photo of us fording a stream  with Gavin in his all-terrain stroller. 

For more photos from this part of our trip, see Rachel's blog.

Road Trip Part 2: Scotland

We spent a couple of days in Scotland, first in the beautiful city of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Castle

Elephant House coffee shop, where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter

A break and a snack at Elephant House coffee shop 

Holyrood Palace, the royal residence in Edinburgh

Mike on a beautiful day in Scotland!

We felt so lucky to just happen upon highland games happening near Edinburgh in Highgate.

Throwing the stane

We made a brief stop at Roslin Chapel, which plays an important part in The Da Vinci Code (both the book and the movie), but aside from the fictional connections, it's a beautiful little church.

See Rachel's blog for more photos of our time in Scotland: http://englishpatience.blogspot.com/2012/05/edinburgh-in-and-around.html