Too long since my last update!

A sure sign that things with school are keeping me insanely busy. A few highlights of what's been going on lately:

I spent 5 days in Santa Fe with my friend Kirsten. Pictures are here ! We stayed at a ranch resort, drank some margaritas and wine, ate at amazing restaurants, and saw dozens of art galleries. The only negative is that it was COLD, like in the 40s, and the last day we had there it snowed! Needless to say the snow in the mountains led us to abandon our plans to drive to Taos that day.

Speaking of Kirsten, our trip was the halfway mark (6 months) of her husband's deployment in Iraq. She just sent me an email pointing out that deployment is taking a toll on Mike. He definitely made us both laugh though! He wrote to her: "Wife, I’ve decided to quit the army, move to the pacific island of Saipan, and live the life of a native hunter/gatherer. I’'m going to learn the ancient art of ceremonial firesticking in my free time (all the time will be my free time), and live a meager existence with a low impact on the world (environmentally, economically, politically, and socially). I will become a vegetarian and substitute my love of cow’s milk for coconut milk. I want to procreate freely without fear of bearing responsibilities for my offspring."

In other news, my brother just returned from a week in Jamaica. His highlights are (poor guy) typical of his kind of "adventures": he had to get reimbursed from a scuba trip because he had his adenoids out 15 years ago, the beach was closed to swimming and water sports 2 days because of high surf, and his excursion to Dunns River Falls was cancelled because there wasn't enough interest. He DID come back more tan though!

Hell Week in Texas

Check out my friend Sarah's recount of her first few days at Hell Week in Texas - I'm so jealous of them!

The Birds Have Arrived!

Friday March 10 seemed to be the arrival date for all the spring birds. Matt called me in the morning to report two sparrows sitting on our back deck. The temps reached at least 55 during the day, the sun was out, and I could smell spring in the air. When I got home there were red winged blackbirds singing all around our pond, and two robins flitting around the crabapple tree in the front yard. I love it!

Eagles in Eden Prairie

Check out these photos that Matt took yesterday!

Room with a Stellar view

My friend Nan and her husband Terry have the coolest observatory in their house - and now it's being aired on HGTV! I thought I'd share the picture and article about their house.