Doesn't everyone crawl around with a duck on their head?

Phoenix, I hardly recognize you

Phoenix has changed a lot in the almost 10 years since we left. The New York Times has a Travel section story today on art galleries and the like. Heck, there's even a grocery store downtown now! It's not all good, though; I'm still sad Chez Bubba's closed.

If you find yourself living in a tropical place ...

you might want one of these:
It's a popsicle maker that completes the task in six minutes. And it makes three sets before you have to freeze it again.
The Williams-Sonoma info is here. Our friends the Crawfords, who left for Dili, East Timor, this week, ordered one after I sent Kelly the link. They'll need it for sure. Us? Not so much. But it's still dang cool.

More sad news

As most of the world unfortunately reaches Haiti overload, the State Department announced this week that three family members were among those killed in the earthquake. It's not that they're more important than any of the thousands killed, but it's the feeling "That could have been us" that hit home. (It was the wife and sons of FSO Andrew Wyllie who died.)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments are here.

For winter visitors to Milan

If you want to come visit us during ski season, you'll have some fun skiing-and-dining options not far away. The New York Times has a great story today on ski-in dining in Cortina.

Ack! Am I actually writing about football?

Indeed I am. But I should make it clear I really don't care.
However, my great-grandmother, who died in 2005, was the biggest New Orleans Saints fan I've ever known. I remember her watching a 1990 preseason game and being so excited just for them to be playing. (They did make the playoffs that year, but it wasn't anything special.)
If she'd been around this season, she would have had a grand old time. Of that I'm sure. So come on, Saints! Win today and go to the Super Bowl!
Granny at her 100th birthday party in 2003 in Ponchatoula, La.

A joyous day

While we were on home leave in Houston last summer, friends of friends from church there had sextuplets. They were born extremely prematurely, as multiples often are, and four of the babies -- two girls and two boys -- already have returned to live with our Heavenly Father.
But two of the girls defied the odds, and yesterday -- at 5.5 months old -- one of them was able to come home from the hospital.
You can read the Stansels' blog here.

The Beffi Triptych

Before Haiti, the last big earthquake to make the world news was in Abruzzo in central Italy. That was April 6, 2009, and I remember waking up that morning, hearing the news on BBC Radio, and finding L'Aquila on the map.
Monday we went to the National Mall, and one of the stops we made was at the National Gallery. I don't venture in there very often these days, but as we walked through the West Building, I noticed this and said to Laura, "Hey, a triptych! Let's go look!"

The triptych was loaned to the National Gallery by the Italian government after the earthquake, and I think it was supposed to have gone back already. But there it was in all its glory. (It suffered only minor scratches during the earthquake, unlike many of the other treasures from the National Museum of Abruzzo.)
I don't know how long you have to visit it, but an information sheet on it and the exhibit it was part of is here.

Haiti

I haven't mentioned the earthquake before, which wasn't deliberate. I think just about everything that can be said has already. All of the stories are heartbreaking, and I pray that the survivors will find some degree of comfort and be able to rebuild their lives.
One U.S. Foreign Service officer was among those killed. We didn't know Victoria DeLong, but I'm sure we know someone who did. I thought the Washington Post story about her was very well done. The State Department's official blog also has a post about her.

An anniversary of sorts

Fifteen years ago this month -- I might even be able to figure out the exact day if I tried hard enough -- I left my sheltered, college-student existence in Provo, Utah, for a "real" newspaper job at the Tennessean in Nashville.
The road to that point was quite random. I'd been a Dow Jones copy-editing intern at the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D., the summer before. (It's a somewhat prestigious program, and you don't get to pick where you go.) The editor there, Jack Marsh, knew I was thinking about leaving school a semester early (finishing two classes by independent study), and he called the week before Thanksgiving to offer me my first "real" job.
But even a summer in Sioux Falls was enough to know I didn't want to spend a winter there, and when I called to say, "No, thanks," he asked, "So where do you want to go?"
You see, the Argus Leader is owned by Gannett, and Gannett owns newspapers everywhere. And I said, "Nashville would be nice."
This was a spur-of-the-moment, no-idea-what-I-was-saying response. Just a few months before I'd sworn I'd never move to Nashville. Not that it wasn't a lovely place and all.
Within a few days I'd gotten a call from Ted Power, one of the managing editors at the Tennessean. Over Christmas break, I flew to Tennessee for an interview. And a few weeks later I started working there.
I've thought about this experience a lot over the past little while, perhaps because of our impending move. In some ways, moving to Italy will be more like that move was than any of the ones I've made since. (And there have been a lot of them.)
But back then, I bought a car and drove it across the country. (That car had a manual transmission, and I really didn't know how to drive one.) At least this time I'll be flying there and then buying a car.

A barrel of monkeys: An essay in photos

Mom, may I please play with the barrel of monkeys and monkey-related accessories I got for Christmas?

Yay! She said yes!

The green monkey is tasty.

I like the red one, too.

But the blue one is my favorite.

Of course, the barrel itself isn't bad, either.

I also like the monkeys' bananas and barrels -- although I wish the bananas were real.

Hey, what's a photo of my bald spot doing in here?

The end.

It's all about the view

Travel+Leisure has a list -- picked up by Yahoo -- of the world's most amazing views. I've been to two of the places listed (Paris and the Grand Canyon), but the one that really intrigues me is:
That's the Matterhorn. It's in Switzerland, so not far from my soon-to-be home. It'll be cool if we can go there. After Owen can walk.
This photo also is from Switzerland. Those of you who are my Facebook friends have seen it already, but it was taken in Lugano when I was on Study Abroad in 1993. We'll be traveling to the lakes a few times over the next couple of years, I hope.

So much for a photo a day

I didn't make it long, did I? And I haven't even managed a post a day. But I guess that's the point in goals, to have something to shoot for.

I'm all for electronic greeting cards, but ...

I also like being able to display all the "real" Christmas cards we get each year. This was a slim year because of many people's shift to e-mailing or Facebooking their holiday greetings. Well, that and a lot of our friends have lost track of our mailing address. Heck, sometimes I lose track of my mailing address.
My favorite of all the cards we received this year is the one on the lower left. The opposite side -- the front -- is similar to the inside of a more traditional card. But the side I like has a photo of the parents (Joel and Carolee Scoville, friends from church in Colorado) surrounded by the photos of their now-married children and their families. It was designed by their daughter Sarah.

A couple of things it's nice to have with a baby in the Foreign Service

Baby Bjorn travel cribI planned to use Owen's as his regular sleeping area. Alas, he still sleeps in the bed with me. But he will be moving out at some point.
The travel crib is much easier to deal with than a pack and play. It's carrying bag is a more convenient shape and size. It's quite pricey, but I think it's worth it.

Easily maneuverable stroller
When Laura was a baby, I had a standard Graco stroller that came with her car seat in what is known as a travel system. The stroller was fine for the mall (not that I ever went to the mall), but even on the nicely kept-up sidewalks of Kingwood, Texas, it had some problems.
With Owen, we have a BOB Revolution stroller, and it makes a world of difference. I imagine it'll be an even bigger deal in Milan, where we'll be driving places a lot less.
Again, it's pricey. But there's an active secondhand market through Craigslist if you don't want to go the Amazon or REI route.

Lest you think I have only one cute kid

Don't forget this one, although obviously she's grown a bit.

This isn't the photo you were meant to see

Somehow that one is gone from the camera, so here's one Laura took of Owen yesterday.

More from the Ice exhibit

I forgot to mention the slides. They're pretty cool. The loaner parkas are supposed to provide a "friction-free" trip down the slide, but you still have to lift your legs.

How I spent my post-Christmas, in-town vacation

We spent Monday and Tuesday nights at the Gaylord National at National Harbor. It's a lovely hotel, and we had an atrium-view room. Not that you'd know that given the less-than-stellar quality of the photos I took from our balcony. But it was great.
We went to see the Ice exhibit, which was awesome. Owen was difficult (kudos to the attendant who took me to the VIP lounge so I could nurse him), but we had a lot of fun -- and appreciated the loaner parkas.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the nativity scene, which we didn't get any good photos of.
The Christmas decorations in the hotel were lovely. We weren't as impressed with the "snowfall" that happened twice per night. The contest to find the Peeps hidden around the lobby and atrium was fun, though.

Laura and I went ice skating Wednesday morning. I'd never been before, and it was a lot of fun. I don't think Laura has quite reached the professional status she thinks she has, though.

Happy New Year!

2010 promises to contain many great adventures, and I'm excited for them all. Well, except for maybe the taking down of the Christmas tree.
I'm committing to post a photo a day this year. This little project will be a bit easier once we're in Italy, I think, but I feel like I should be documenting a lot of other things. So we'll see how it goes.
If any of you have ideas of things you'd like to see photos of, pass them along.