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!