Texas Hell Week biking with Parents and Friends

On March 14th Mark & I, with our two friends Kathy & Bonita, drove to Rogers, AR where we picked up Hazel and Bob and their RV and drove onto Fredericksburg, TX. We enjoyed the warmer spring temperatures, biking on the back roads of the TX Hill Country and hot tubbing upon our return to erase the pains of our first ride of the season.

TX Hell week 2008

Peace Forum, Concordia college, Moorhead 3/7/08

We attended the 20th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Concordia College with Mary Jo. She informed us of the event so we registered early. Good thing as the event sold out quickly.
The keynote speakers were Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace prize winner in '06, Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Dr Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University & the author of The End of Poverty. Mary Jo presented at one of the concurrent seminar sessions: "Assessing the Impact of Microlending: Challenges & Practice". We found the forum to be exciting, informational, & very inspiring. Lots of folks from the Microfinance Alliance group that Mary Jo started before she left MN were in attendance so was fun to reconnect with them also.

Ski trips

We really enjoyed this winter of '07/'08. Can't remember having this much snow since the winter of '97. Being able to walk over to the golf course after work and ski for an hr most evenings was relaxing and invigorating. Some of our out of town trips were to Telemark in Cable, WI with the Northstars and a four day trip to Camp duNord near Ely in January. In Feb we went on our annual ski trip with South Mpls friends to the Heartland Conference Ctr near Danbury, WI. Then on President's Day long weekend we went to several new (to us) x-c ski spots near Ladysmith, WI. Hate to put the skiis away, but with the arrival of daylight saving time, we are starting to think of biking!

DuNord2008

Washington DC

First, let me wish all our family and friends a heartfelt blessing of peace, good health, and joy during this holiday season. 2007 was definitely an awesome year of adventure and new beginnings for our family as you can see by the below entries. We were very fortunate to be able to visit with both of our children on opposite sides of our country for the last two holidays of the year. Being able to help Mary Jo get more settled in her 'new' brownstone home on 'D' St NE & celebrate Christmas with her and our 'Neel' cousins was very special for us. Mary Jo absolutely loves her new job with the Grameen Foundation. (Check out her blog for more details.)

Washington 2007 (Click to see more photos)

Trip to Joshua Tree California

On Nov. 11th Mark and I flew out to see Karla and Adam in Joshua Tree, CA. We got to do some scenic and fun hikes in Joshua Tree National Park. My niece Kathy and her husband Manual drove up from San Jacinto on Veteran's Day to do a moderately strenuous 5 hr. hike with us! Then we drove up to Death Valley to climb Telescope Peak (11,300 ft.), had a clear, sunny, perfect day. We also hiked in the Kelso Dunes in the Mojave Desert Preserve. The other peak we summited was San Jacinto after taking the tram up from Palm Springs to 8,000 ft. The views were awesome. Mark's brother Roy joined us for Thanksgiving Day, as did Adam's friends Andrew and Jenny from the wine country. Later we had another great meal at my niece Kathy's Saturday after Thanksgiving . Her son Dominic, wife Kelly, my sister Shirley, Brittany, all came to feast and visit. It was a very special desert vacation.
Click on the photo below to see the slide show.

Desert California

Diane in Guatemala

Diane went to Antigua,Guatemala with a surgical team from Allina Oct 13th-24th. Half of the team of 28 was 'non technical' so many of the photos are eduational tours we did through Common Hope, our sponsoring organization. We also did volunteer work set up by Common Hope. I roomed and traveled with Cheryl who got me interested in volunteering with the surgical team. I hadn't been to Guatemala since '91 so was surprised at how much spanish I remembered. Returning to Guatemala was as thrilling as my previous adventures there had been. I was most impressed with all the surgeries performed by the 2 gen. surgeons, podiatrist & the skilled surg. team members. The organizational work of Common Hope, Partners in Surgery, and Pedro Hermanos Hospital to make this all work so well was awesome.
I also want to again thank my family and friends who helped with financial donations to make this week possible.
Double click on the photo to enlarge and read my captions.

Guatemala2007

Biking in New Mexico and Arizona: 9/15-9/29/07

Diane is just back from 2 weeks biking in New Mexico and Arizona. I've included a few pictures to give you an idea of the beautiful landscape we had each day. Most days we climbed two to four thousand feet--most of the downhills were quite thrilling. Click on the picture if you want to enlarge it. All 19 of agreed that it was one of our most picturesque trips. We had ideal weather. Mary, our organizer, found some delightful places for us to stay.
Double click on photo below to see pictures and captions.

NM-AZbiketrip07