Merry Christmas

Alana photographing ice crack

Forgot to take Christmas pictures while Alana and Erin and Al were around for Christmas, but here is one of Alana taking photos during a walk on the frozen lake. Alana went back to N.O. on the 28th.

Southern Cal

While a blizzard rages in WI, we settle in to warm weather and kite flying with Ev and Mike.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving - we were at Al and Erin's with his folks, Maria and Jim.

Dancers Galore

Ack and I spent Sunday in Milwaukee watching ethnic dancers perform and eating lots of great food at the annual Holiday Folk Fair. I was there for work and he was there for company. We topped off the day with a curling match back in Madison, which we lost but wow, was it a good close game which made it a lot of fun.

Great Visitors

Eileen and Allen stopped by on their move to Boulder. They got a taste of Wisconsin's best: fried cheese curds, a brandy old-fashioned, curling and the capitol.  They left yesterday and Josh Penn, Alana's buddy from Earlham and NOLA, leaves today after a valiant effort to keep Russ Feingold in office.

New Orleans, Lutefisk

The photo of the Mississippi is from Ack's room in New Orleans, where he got to visit with Alana. The other photo was taken prior to us visiting the Son's of Norway for a Lutefisk dinne. Ack had the 'lyefish' but Anne, the folklorist, skipped it.

Scenes from Sunday in Madrid

Time for tapas

She's wearing angel wings!

Playing in Retiro Park

Professional cyclists competing in La Vuelta a la Comunidad de Madrid tied up the streets for hours, making it pretty tough to go where we wanted.

Walking along Paseo del Prado

Sunday in Retiro Park

Napping in Retiro Park (we did the same!)

The palm garden in Atocha train station

Hessen Architecture

Some examples of buildings we saw in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany on walking tours around the city today and yesterday...

The Waldspirale is a Dr. Seuss-like apartment building by the Austrian artist Hundertwasser.

St. Ludwig's is a really unusual Catholic church modeled after the Pantheon (this is the interior)

The 'wedding tower' is part of the Art Nouveau artist colony section of town, Mathildenhöhe.

Lots of decorative elements on lots of buildings

Fachwerk in the nearby town of Dreieich where meteorology colleagues took us to dinner

On the water

Anne and I did our first nighttime pontoon ride - we went to watch the fire works at Maple Bluff from the boat. It was a nice evening. We also canoed the lake-line and saw a green heron and a great blue heron - can you find them in the pictures?

Labor Day Weekend in "America's Little Switzerland"

Some scenes from the Wilhelm Tell festival in New Glarus. Amazing community effort to stage it annually since 1938. Music, dance, acting, animals and overthrowing a tyrant!  What's not to love?

Back in DC

Here is Anne on the Millennium Theatre stage at the Kennedy Center introducing Wisconsin Polka Music! You can watch a video of her introduction and the music of Steve Meisner and Friends in the Kennedy Center Archives. She also introduced him at a performance at the Library of Congress.

Anne also got to fly her kite next to the Washington Monument. And we both visited with Alana before she heads out to California with Mia and then returning to New Orleans area.

Back in DC

We are back in DC, Anne and Ack on separate job related activities, and while back we got to visit with Alana (sorry it is on its side).

Celebrating 30

Ack and Anne had a great time celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, first in Milwaukee over the weekend and then back home with a delicious party on a perfect night with lots of good friends.  Wish you could have all been with us too!

Sunning Time

I've seen fewer than usual turtles this season wandering the roads.  Early spring I'm on the lookout for mamas searching for places to bury their eggs.  Later I look for hatchlings walking back from the nest to the water. We had one mama visit our yard in the spring and I escorted a baby across Westport Road several weeks after that. That's lower numbers than usual but I'm trusting that they're just staying off the roads this year, not that their overall numbers are down.

Today's sighting was of an adolescent sunning on a rock along our shoreline.

Delicious B-day

Happy memories, some left over pie and a new driver's license are what's left of my b-day. Mimi and Poppy are on their way back to NY and Ack and I leave for the WTLC cultural tour in about an hour.  Lots to do between now and then but couldn't resist posting this beautiful pie photo first - what Ack made for the b-day dinner last night. (I always choose pie over cake!)

Happy Birthday Anne!

Captain Anne

Happy Birthday Anne!

A Day in the Gardens

Anne, Mimi and Poppy went to Olbrich Gardens to see Ack and Anne's artwork in the current exhibit there. Organized by Northside Artists Group, the pieces all have to be about Troy Community Gardens (which is where we have garden plots).  Anne: two photos (one of which sold!) & Ack: a colored pencil drawing.  Then a tour of the beautiful gardens by tram. After that, the highlight of the afternoon - a beautiful nap!

Hawaii...

Hawaii beach at 6:30 am

Ack is in Hawaii at a meeting. The beach scene is empty because it is at 6:30 am - it'll fill with tourists in an hour. This Hilton complex, where the conference is, is a huge tourist trap. I call it an economic prison, because it is hard to find you way off the complex and everywhere there are places to spend money. But the meeting is good, and Hawaii is no fun without Anne anyway.

Lift that Boat

Photo from Sunday -- getting a boat lift installed.

Happy Birthday Mike!

He and Steve are no longer the same age! (This was posted on July 26, Hawaii time).

Just the 4 of Us

This was my soon-to-be birthday request - a no grumbles portrait shoot. We squeezed it in last night after a boat ride and before dinner.
Some trips are ending and others beginning. Ack left today for Hawaii; Erin returns to IN tomorrow; Alana leaves on Tuesday for DC; Mimi and Poppy were supposed to arrive here this afternoon but got bumped in Detroit.  Waaaa!

Happy Birthday Ack!

Ack's birthday was celebrated with Alana coming to visit for a couple of weeks (Erin comes later), champagne, shuffle board and a boat ride. Yes, that is our new boat, which we picked up today!

Jonas Sees in Color

A great show tonight! Lots of energy, wonderful music and great performance. Too bad it was only an hour. The band are healthy and looking fine - lucky considering the accident they had.

Happy 4th of July!

There is nothing like the "Rhythm and Booms" fireworks display in Madison WI! It is billed as the "largest fireworks display in the Midwest", there are about 15,000 shells fired during the 35 minute show. Yes, those are firecracker hearts in the photography. There were also smiley faces and stars. The weeping willow that turned colors just before burning out was my favorite this year. Anne and I went with Rick and Nicky. Biking down after a lamb BBQ.

A bit of touring...

Ack visited two sites in Taipei region. The first visit is Taipei 101 - the second tallest building in the world (it was the tallest in 2004). Taipei 101 comprises 101 floors above ground and 5 floors underground. Its eight sections resemble a bamboo structure. It also has the fastest elevators. Anne would not have liked the view, as one would stand next to wall to wall glass at 90 stories; at some point realizing that the building was swaying. To reduce the sway, there is a counter ball on the 87th floor that weights several hundred tons.

The second was to Yangmingshan National Park. It also includes a view Mt Cising which had some sulfur steam vents. There was also a nice flower park and a small waterfall.