Fathers Day Weekend

Mary Jo, Adam, and Karla all came to Mpls for the weekend. Adam and Karla had a 10 year High School reunion. Adam and I sailed in the ADA regatta on Saturday. Diane, Hamid, and Mary Jo toured Mpls before joining us at the lake for a picnic.

Fathers Day 2008

Hamid

We have a new roomate. Hamid from Ethiopia is staying with us. Hamid is an immigrant to the US learning English and looking for a Nursing Assistant position. We are enjoying having him with us.

Sailing season is almost upon us!

Yes there is still ice on the lake, but the schedule is out and it is time to sign up for your spot on Liberty.

Let me know when you can join us for fun on Lake Minnetonka. As always I will give priority based on seniority. If you can't sail on Liberty you can still sail on another Sonar. Let me know and I will try to find you a spot.

Let me know if I made any errors on the schedule here.

Mark

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)