Chris' Birthday

Well, I hit the big 30. This was my deeeeeelicious monkey bread breakfast. Sarah sure does love me.



Kinda crazy when you think about it and sadly, I was feeling worn out - my left foot was aching from a severely bruised outer toe that was stomped on by an opponent in my weekly HP soccer games and my right shoulder was wigging out with some sort of arthritic joint problem.

Here is a picture of Ellie working on some art - her face painting. I think this one is a Lettuce Water Ranch. You ought to see the spaghetti brunch. Nasty . . .



Here is another of Ellie trying out my ball cap. She liked it and gave me a quick tooth shiner.

President's Day Weekend

We spent our President's Day Weekend in Rexburg with the Beckstrand clan sledding and playing in the snow. It was a ball.

Here are some pictures of us all bundled up











We tucked inside after a while for a few more shots

Here are three of the sisters, Katie, Sarah and Christine



Jared and Katie in their Engagement Photo



Aaron "Caught in the Action" snatching cookies



What a fun weekend

Denmark - Day 5 and 6

While I saw awesome sites in Italy, my visit to Denmark, in a way, felt like home. Over the course of the two days, I was amazed how it seemed that the people looked so much like me. I saw blonde and fair skinned people all over - Theirs was an incredibly green land even though the temperature must have been in the low 40s and the land was clean and sectioned off and I hardly saw any trash. I saw large stands of forest after every couple of fields - a reforestation project, Bent Hogsted told me.

I spent the first half day seeing Aahrus sites and catching up with Jan and his family. Jan and I spent the first couple of hours strolling the streets and shops of the downtown. It was like we were 18 again and we had such a fun time catching up. We then went to dinner with Luisa, his girlfriend



and ate a delicious Danish dish of pork, potatoes and gravy. The pork was cured and tasted like delicious bacon.



On the walk downtown, I was amazed how public people are. The apartments are at least 4 stories high and small and no one used blinds anywhere. I was fascinated to look across the street and see people in heated conversations and all up and down the street, young couples were sitting down for candle lit dinners. It was almost romantic. Here, I sneaked a shot of this couple



The next morning, Bent and Marianne prepared a wonderful traditional Danish breakfast of cheeses, meats and breads. The meat with the dark center is pork with pepper and the redish meat seemed to be a smoked pork. Both were very new tastes to me.



I watched Jan play soccer that afternoon, bought some gifts and then went back to the Hogsted's for a family dinner and evening chat around the traditional bowl of candy. It was great fun. In the pictures are Jan's kids, Victoria and Oliver



Bent and Kim (Jan's older brother)



and Hele (sorry for the bad spelling), Kim's wife.



Marianne, Oliver and me



It was a fabulous visit and ended with a quick snapshot of a life size Star Wars figure made out of Leggos which originate in Denmark.

Italy - Day 3 and 4

I want to get a few pics up so you can see some of the cool things about Italy. In a nut shell, the sights were the most amazing of my 6 day European whirlwind trip. I spent both day 3 and 4 in Milan and saw the Davinci painting of the last supper, a huge castle that was on the edge of Ancient Milan that is now in the center of the sprawl

It had amazingly thick walls with huge iron gates. Here is the exit looking to the west.



In the inner walls, were these cannon balls that were about twice the size of a bowling ball - they must have used a lot of gun powder to fire those heavy things.



Yet, the most amazing site was the Duomo, the 3rd largest church in the world.

I took a long stair case to the top and snapped this picture on the roof.



I also saw the Galleria,



the open air mall with a 200 foot tall roof with panes of semi-transparent sheeting that let the sky in. It was amazing. I saw the most beautiful men and women there in Milan. They had amazing clothes that were so fancy, lots of tall black boots, leather jackets and sharp trousers on the men and full length fur coats on the women. Both men and women were clad in large squarish sunglasses and had big rings, necklaces, earings and done-up hair. I knew I was in a different place when I saw a crowd of Americans in their jeans, sweatshirts and tennis shoes and ball caps. For a moment, I wasn't proud of our casual American style then I realized how good it felt to be in my sneakers and loose fitting jeans.

Germany - Day 2 at the DOM

Well, day 2 is almost over and it was another busy day. I've passed the jetlag issues and am running on all four cylinders; I mean 2 cylinders since I am in Germany where the cars are as small as my little kid go-cart.

Here is a picture of the smallest car I've ever seen



We started our day by visiting the DOM, the most significant Cathedral that survived the bombings of WWII. It is now at the center of the old town.



Next, we walked west down a small street and I grabbed this shot contrasting the new city with the old



Around the corner, we saw this awesome plaza with a cool fountain in the middle and these Austrian style buildings all with bright colors and finish work



We saw a beer truck unloading loads of metal keggers, a handful of other tourists and plenty of winter clothing. The air temperature was in the upper 20s and the mist kept a coming. We were ready for lunch and tucked away in this quaint German pub.



I was feeling a bit edgy and so I ordered a plate of wild boar, dumplings, cabbage and half a pear full of cranberries. It was a bit too wild for my tameness.



The waiter was the owner and was so hospitable, he posed for a picture.



This was a shot of the wall in his place. Can I say CROWDED



Next, I found my way across the Rhine river to some old museums. I snapped a few pictures of what I thought was most interesting. I'll have to post those pictures later.

Germany sends it love to the family. Catch my post tomorrow from Milan, Italy.

Germany - Day 1 on the Zine

I had to take a picture of this toilet stall. This toilet was almost square - the flush button is that nicely shaped silver button on the wall. Hey, it did the job!! 


Another building preserved through WWII - now they host major plays and broadway shows 


Can you imagine squeezing four or five people in this little car? Wow, I saw another that was half this size that allowed 2 people to sit in it. The guy driving it filled up the entire space. Amazing engineering! 


Cool bikes, huh - they were all the old school types and there were hundreds everywhere. 


I followed a group of Germans into a Galleria and up the 5 levels of escalators. I read a Germany for Dummies book for 1/2 hour, didn't buy it at $33, and ended up on the top of the building where several where outside taking pictures. I fumbled through the words to offer to a German couple to take their picture, and then I handed them my camera without a word. They knew what to do. I mumbled danka (thank you) and we parted. That was the pattern of my afternoon. I spent 4 hours by myself touring. 



Here is a huge statue in Frankfurt. I think it represents manufacturing efforts - I learned today that Frankfurt is the biggest banking city in the EU - ~483 banks. All that money funds the large buildings. Interestingly, this is a huge slab of metal, 12 inches thick. The hand touching the head moves up and down every few seconds. 

This was another picture from the top of the Galleria looking down past the plaza at an old church - in WWII, most of Frankfurt was leveled except for these churches. Amazingly, many of them were preserved. You can see it here how it sticks out from the surroundings. 

Robin Has Arrived & Bat Woman

Like all little boys, our Caleb was rewarded by pottying in the toilet with a set of his favorite super hero underwear. It was our toilet training technique that has turned into something more than a reward for tinkling in the right place.



Yesterday, Caleb pulled his undies down just a little bit and said, "Mommy, can I get more undies." Sarah saw the red mark in his skin where his waste band had been cinching around Caleb. She felt horrible that he was wearing undersized undies so of course she got him some more and this time, he had some dancing to do to celebrate.



Download 7 & 5 MB videos of his little dance and get a laugh like we did

Caleb's run in, dance and muscle flex
Caleb's sitting dance and door stop foot slap

Of Course Ellie couldn't stay out of the attention and was there to flash her bright whites. In this one, she was in the middle of saying, "cheeeeese"



After she saw me filming Caleb, she had to do a little something herself. I was expecting a dance. Instead, she looked more like a puppy trying to scrape something off her little bum bum. :-)

Download a 5 MB movie of her little scoot - darn she is cute.

Ellie's Cute Scoot

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