Concord Apartment

I finally had a minute to take some pictures of my new apartment. I'm settling in well and I really love it.

Footnotes Part II

I was really excited that my friend Nathan was one of my volunteers for Footnotes. Nathan and I were Wanakee campers when we were little kids and we have both loved Wanakee for all the years since. He did an amazing job as a counselor for the high school Footnotes site and every time I saw him, he seemed to be having an incredible amount of fun. His wife Jennifer and daughter Evelyn came to visit camp on Friday night and had dinner with us. Evelyn enjoyed pizza and ice cream night in the dining hall. Here Nathan and I are wearing our napkins as bibs to help convince Evelyn to keep hers on and protect her cute dress from Peru that I sent her.

This is possibly one my most favorite pictures ever. Jennifer took it during the concert and it just cracks me up. Nathan and his co-counselor Erin were partners during the boy/girl dance and here they are showing off their fancy dance moves during the free section at the end. Becky choreographed an awesome dance and it included this great part that reminded me of the last scene of "Grease". I loved it!

Footnotes, Part I

Hands down, the best week of my year is always the week that I spend directing Footnotes at Wanakee. I can't even begin to tell you how excited, and terrified, I was when was Sue Rudolf told me that she wanted me to take over Footnotes, after she had done it for over 20 years. Sue and I talked about it this week - how she had prepped me to take over Footnotes for years and years without me even knowing it. I'm glad she had such great faith in me - I don't think I have that kind of faith in myself, but knowing Sue wanted me to take over Footnotes means the world to me. It is truly the best thing I do all year and makes me more happy than I can even express.

I was happy to see my two favorite co-counselors at week three check in. Rich was counseling for LITE for the week and Tom G-L was dropping his daughter Emily off of to be one of my Footnotes campers for the week. My first summer on staff (1996) Rich and I were counselors for Footnotes and it was amazing. Then the next year I got to be Tom's co-counselor for LIT. I loved my time with both of them and am always happy to see them and reminisce about our time together.

My fabulous bell director, Kerri-Lynn, always brings her kayaks to Footnotes. We got out on the water on Thursday afternoon and had a great time.

It has never rained on a Footnotes concert, in over 25 years of doing Footnotes. I'll be honest, after the year I had in 2007/2008 I was a little worried that it would torrential rain on the Saturday of the Footnotes concert, but if it didn't happen last summer, I was pretty confident that it wouldn't rain for us in subsequent summers. This year it poured on Friday night and rained through the night into Saturday morning. Luckily, the staff firmly believes that it is not suppose to rain on the Footnotes concert, so they are determined to make the concert happen. Here is Lisa, Kerri-Lynn, Jason, and Sean shop vac-ing and sweeping the volleyball court so the water is gone for our concert at 10am.

Washington DC, Part IV

On Saturday Karisti and I decided to check out the Newseum, the museum of news that everyone had been raving about. It was amazing! And the best part, which was a complete surprise to us, was that there is an exhibit of the Berlin Wall there. How fun is that, especially for us!! Yep, that is a real piece of the Berlin Wall you see there. We were so happy to see it. It sounds silly, but it was like seeing an old friend - it did my heart good. I know that sounds weird - the Wall is a symbol of a terrible time but it is also such a strong symbol of Berlin and I miss living in Berlin every day.

The view from the balcony of the Newseum is pretty amazing, as you can see. In addition to the Berlin Wall, there were really interesting exhibits on photos from Barack Obama's campaign, election, and inauguration, and a moving exhibit about 9/11. The next time you are in DC, I highly recommend the Newseum.

We spent Saturday night at Camden Yards, watching a game between the Orioles and the Nationals. There was a big group of us and we had a great time. I have a hard time paying attention at baseball games, but I enjoyed drinking beer and sitting outside in a ballpark on a warm summer night.

Washington DC Part III

Michelle and John had planned an amazing weekend, which included a party on a cruise as their "reception" on Friday night. The boat took us up and down the Potomac and it was beautiful. It was fun to meet all of Michelle's friends I had heard about over the years and to see everyone so happy and excited for John and Michelle.

I don't think I've ever seen a couple quite as happy as they are. Aren't they just too cute? I loved watching them interact all weekend and remember back to when we were all in Berlin and they had just gotten together. It is so great to see them at this point, happily married!

The Markelstrasse Girls, all dressed up at the party. We've decided that we've started a new tradition where we are going to get together each summer for a couple of days, somewhere fun, and just hang out together. Last summer the three of us were together in Chicago and Iowa, this summer DC, and next summer we are hoping for somewhere in Europe. I'm voting for future summers to include Vegas and New Orleans too.

Washington DC, Part II

I've decided that bike tours just might be my favorite way of seeing a city. Michelle, Karisti and I did a great bike tour in Chicago last summer, so I was really excited when a bike tour was part of the adventures for our weekend in DC. Here are the three of us with our cute blue flowered bikes and stylish (note my sarcasm here) bike helmets.

The bike tour took us all over the city, with lots of time spent on the Mall. Here are Michelle and John near the beginning of the tour, in front of the Smithsonian.

Look, it's the Capital! Our tour guide was great and gave us all kinds of interesting information about the buildings we were riding past.

Washington DC, Part I

I am incredibly far behind in my blog updates, so here is my attempt to catch up. Be prepared for lots to read!

I spent the last weekend in June at a mini Berlin reunion in Washington, DC. My friends Michelle and John had gotten married in Berlin a few weeks before (they met when we were all teaching together in Berlin and now both live in Singapore) and were having a party to celebrate their wedding in DC since Michelle is from Virginia. Karisti and I were happy to represent their "Berlin life" at a fun-filled weekend in DC.

Karisti and I flew into DC at the same time, from different ends of the US, and spent Thursday doing some sightseeing. It was hot, hot, hot in DC and we nearly melted, but we still had a great time. We walked from the Smithsonian all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial, with many water breaks along the way.

We stopped to put our feet in the water at the World War II Memorial and I reminisced about being in DC in 2004 and being a part of the dedication of this memorial with my students from West. It was an incredible experience and I have a lot of good memories from that weekend. It was fun to be back in DC again and to see the memorial and all the other places I had been with the kids.