Only 3 months til Spring!

It was a warm day today, only about 5 below, Eloise and I inspected the state of the ice melting in the drain pipes, and the gutter, forming some pretty impressive icicles. I have a fantastic tool called a 'chopper' basically it is a little like spade but narrower , thicker steel, and with a more heavy duty handle. Its for smashing ice from your walkways/driveways. I spent 20 minutes or so doing that today, its a little like sisyphus pushing the bolder up a hill forever, but it does have a certain meditative quality.

Actually, when I went out to buy my chopper, I didn't know what they were called, so I walked into the hardware store and asked for "one of the those thingys for smashing up ice on the sidewalk" and recieved one of those quizicle, 'you're not from around here are you?' looks.
"You mean a chopper?"
"Err yes"
He pointed to a particularly hefty looking one
"This is a great one"
I 'hmmmd' knowingly, nodded my head, and tried to look like a man who knows his choppers
"I'll take it"

There has been a lot of shoveling snow and smashing up ice to do this winter. It's a civic duty (and a legal obligation) to shovel the pavement in front of your house whever there is more than 2 inches of snow, but that is only half the job, what with the entrance to garage, paths around the house and garden and 2 flights of steps the streets to deal with. It sounds like a drag, but given that you are cooped up inside for 5 months of the year, it is possible to take pleasure in this little excursion.

Liz is back in law school now, so that means I'm on baby duty evenings and weekends so she can go to class and get some studying done. Liz's mum also helps out, coming in for a couple of days a week to watch the little girl. She is growing and lots of fun. We try to enjoy every moment, because she's changing before our eyes.

I'll leave you with some proof of my shoveling efforts!

The Winter has come but Eloise warms our hearts!

I was singing when I invented this chintzy title. 'Hearts' was sung with a very high C if you want to give it a try. I actually have had a very tuneful evening as I've been pacing around the house singing every Christmas carol I know (which is a lot) to stop Eloise from crying. It's not so much soothing for her, as confusing, but her incredulity at my absurd behavior stuns her into silence.

Ok, enough silliness. I won't pretend that what I have to say is of any interest, as a new parent I know that the only thing anyone is interested in is the baby. Most conversations with others go like this, 'Horray, Eloise is here!', 'How's Eloise?', 'Any new pictures of Eloise?', and 'When's Eloise coming to visit?' I'm going to pick up my chauffeur's license next week.

Will give quick summation of news. The recession hasn't caught up with me yet, still in the workforce! Liz has taken the semester off from university, but is going back in January. We are pretty settled into our home now, and we both feel very blessed as we know many people are far less fortunate. Eloise is smiling, cooing and occasionally sleeping through the night. She is 3 months and 9 and a half pounds.

We hope everyone is doing great, here are the photos!

Baby Eloise

Hi all,

For those of you who just can't get enough baby photos here are some of little Eloise who is now approaching a heady 2 weeks of age. We are all doing extremely well, despite the sleep deprivation. I am adapting well to my role of 'evil daddy', being responsible for most things that result in hysterical crying - changing nappies, burping, bathing and cleaning belly buttons etc. 'Yummy Mummy' on the other hand is responsible for spreading joy and happiness by designing the menu, serving up wholesome meals, comforting and cuddling.

Just a quicky

Hi Everyone, as you may or may not know, Liz and I have bought a house and are having a baby. How very conventional of us! I know, I'm a total disgraceful sell out, but what can I say? I'm 30.

Anyway, I have been promising to put some photos up of the house for sometime, and now that I don't spend every spare minute studying for the CFA I can actually get around to it.

(I uploaded the photos in reverse order, so we are starting with the garage)

The Jeep's new home

Down the Stairs
Up the Stairs

The Living/Dining Room (still in a just moved in state)

Our vegetable boxes I made with my own hands and brand new power tools!

Me with birdfeeder, peonies and wheelbarrow making a flower bed

Liz in Kitchen with bump

View from back bedroom window (garage, garden and alley)

View from master bedroom

Front porch

Front and side view

Back view

Front view

A Brief Summerization

Today is the official last day of summer in the U.S. I say 'official', although perhaps I should say 'traditional' as unlike the Queens Birthday there's only one of them, as far as I know anyway. It's also the first day of the Republican National Convention, right here in St Paul, and the day that Gustav refused to drown New Orleans, much to the disappointment of the news media I'm sure.

At the start of August my parents came to visit Liz and I in St Paul, so we got to show off the delights of the city to our first guests. They efficiently worked their way through the detailed itinery we had put together and now have seen far more of the city's museums and attractions than we have. Staples of Americana we served up included: Baseball (Bratwurst and Summit beer were hits, the local team's batting mostly misses), Bowling (Dad won easily ) and Bald Eagles. We also visited Liz's parents for several days and spent several more days on the shores of Lake Superior. Which upon contact Dad pronounced 'Boiling!' scotching malicious rumours that it is in-fact hypothermia inducing.

Following my parents' departure to rediscover the long lost Canadian relatives, (apparently they've been in Canada all this time) Liz and I have been soaking in the last heat of Summer. The end of Summer in Minnesota means one thing - the State Fair. Actually, it also means the ever approaching spector of winter but everyone has a cultivated state of denial around that. I'm sure you'll be amazed to know the State Fair has over 60 different kinds of food on a stick. Every year new kinds of food on a stick are dreamt up and this year's addition to the menu, chocolate covered bacon, recieved state wide news attention.

Squeaky, one of the fair's biggest attractions, may indeed have indulged a little too heavily in the food on a stick....

I didn't buy the sob story about it being 'in the genes' or 'selective breeding'. I know a case of 'deep fried snickers on a stick' when I see one.

The other big event in St Paul this week is the Republican National Convention, so Liz and I went down to check out the demonstrations. The demontrators were a diverse lot, from peacenic young families, to anarchists dressed in black with scarfs around there faces. Some speeches called for love not war, others for militant revolution, all playing to the same crowd, just to prove distaste for the current regime tops ideology any day. I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Code Pink and Che.

6 Months in 6 Paragraphs

Spring was all about studying. Liz and I have been heads down in the books for months, she in law, I in economics and equities. Life pretty much consisted of working eating and studying, which may not sound like much fun, but after several years of living it up, I think we probably deserved some hard work. On May 13th however, that all changed, Liz's last exam was over and we off on another (mini) adventure.

At 11.30 am I swung into the carpark of Hamline law school, our venerable old jeep piled high in the back with food, tents, cooking gear - the works. Liz ran down the steps grinning from ear to ear, jumped in next to me, and we sped off towards Interstate 94 and The West... With the possible exception of Denver, Minneapolis is really the last bastion of civilization until you reach the Pacific coast, so it wasn't long before we were on open, straight roads cutting through the incredible vastness of the American West. It's really, really big.

I'd been warned by colleagues that between Minneapolis and the Bandlands are 10 hours of the most tedious driving anyone is likely to experience, with the monotony only broken by the dubious delights of the 'Corn Palace' which is a kind of Brighton Pavilion, made of variously coloured ears of corn. The corn is arranged into life affirming murals of the everyday heroism of ordianary folk, the firefighter, the policeman, etc. Mao would have been proud. Its a testament to the monotony of drving across the great planes that the place can exist and draws thousands of tourists a year, all of whome are on their way to somewhere else.

This all said, I enjoyed the drive, probably because unlike my co-workers don't have painfull associations of childhood holidays trapped in the car for 10 hours. The great emptiness of the plains definately has a majesty of its own, and the way sky dominates the landscape draws attention to its own ever shifting asthetic.

After a day and a half on the road we pulled into a 'rustic' campsite in the Bad Lands national park. The only other inhabitants of the site were a small herd of buffalo who we rather hoped wouldn't take offense at our presence. A large pictoral sign on the edge of the camp gave a rundown of the warning signs that a buffalo is about to charge, and as we read it we realized that one of the bulls was exhibiting a disturdingly large number of them. We decided to eat dinner in the car.

A day later we were the Black Hills, which is home to Mt Rushmore. Its also a really beautiful area of forested hills with granite outcrops which is sacred to the Native Americans. We climbed up Harney Peak, which is the highest mountain between the rockies and the Pyranees and hiked into the Black Elk wilderness and camped in the forest.

Our target for the journey was Yellowstone, a mere 1100 miles from St Paul, so we pressed on after a couple of days in the Black Hills visiting the Devils Tower (used as a set in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind) and the Big Horn Mountains on the way to the Rockies.

To get into Yellowstone you have to cross a pass at about 10000 feet, and even though it was May there was still alot of snow on the ground, once we were inside the park, which as a huge caldera is ringed with mountains on all sides, we realized why only the lowest altitude campsites were open, the rest were still under several feet of snow. Still, it's a huge area, so we were still able to explore a good section of the park on foot and the snow does deter a good number of the tourists. In high season it is apparently like a huge traffic jam in the park, with everone stopping to take photos of the wildlife.

I actually didn't realize just how many long camera lenses were in existence until we went there. This gaggle of amateur photographers were so busy trying to get a glimpse of a bear down the hill on the left hand side of the road, didn't notice the one on the other side of the road, right next to our car. I didn't need the long lense for this. Of course we were terrified of the bears when we were out walking. The rangers tell tales of bear attacks and generally try to make tourists feel as vunerable as possible in order to encourage them to stay in their vehicles. When walking in bear country you are supposed to sing constantly and make lots of noise so the bears know you are coming, so I suppose I was never in any real danger of being attacked. Our last day in Yellowstone the snow started falling again, so by the time we reached Jackson Hole in the Grand Tetons we were camping in the snow, which wasn't too clever in a summer only tent. Still it is also a beautiful part of the world.

Once we got back from our holidays I had a couple of weeks to finish preparing for my first CFA exam. It was hard work going over 7 hugh text books of material in a couple of weeks and cramming it into my head. The test itself was 6 hours long, 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. I'll find out the result at the end of July. In the couple of weeks since then we have been trying to enjoy the summer, Liz is working at a Non-Profit being public defender and I'm still busy as ever at work. I'll leave you with a photo of our campsite in the Black Hills and a cloudy Grand Tetons.