Colorado Weekend

We spent four days in Colorado visiting family and friends. The weather was perfect allowing us to explore Boulder on foot, visit our wedding spot on Flagstaff mountain, and spend a day visiting friends in Colorado Springs and Denver. We realized during the visit that Andi had not been back to Boulder since our wedding three years ago--it was great for her to see the mountains, walk around Boulder and relax. She also met Annie and Daniel's son Atticus for the first time. Atticus is 13 months old and the two became fast friends mainly due to Andi's ability to blow bubbles.

We spent part of Sunday visiting Melissa and Fred Cunningham and Melissa Phillips in Colorado Springs. Melissa C. is still recovering from a recent fall on the ice resulting in a titanium plate and 9 screws being placed in her ankle. Melissa P. brought over 2 week son Grant. He's tiny, cute, and very flexible. It was great of everyone to let us invite ourselves over to catch up. After a delicious P.F. Chang's lunch, we were off to Denver. We met up with a few more friends for dinner...Ty Little, and Mike and Kendra Russell.

Here are some pics from our trip.

Catching Up

It's been a crazy few weeks in Condo Podo with Andi and Chuck spread across the continental US for most of January. Chuck snowboarded in Whistler with some friends. It was a convenient trip as friends from Boise are moving to Fairbanks, AK. So Chuck met with Rich and they drove to Whistler for a few days. Chuck then flew to Burlington to meet up with Chris and Jen Tumilowicz and Andi headed to Florida for a meeting in Fort Walton Beach. FWB was really cold but Andi had a great room on the beach and had the opportunity to catch up with Geoff and Andrea Jensen. After returning from Burlington, Chuck flew to Portland (see post below) to do some field work.

National Gallery Skating attempt #2 was a success. Chuck, Andi, and Ashlee got up early yesterday to give skating another shot. We arrived at 1000 for the first skate of the day...Chuck took pictures and laughed at us and Ashlee and I had a great time. After nearly two hours of skating we headed to Georgetown for lunch at Filomena's Italian restaurant. Then we walked around Georgetown, did a little shopping, and a little sightseeing before heading home. Tracy Coyne, in DC for her IMA days stopped, by for dinner. We had a great time catching up with her. She, Erik, and the kidlets are heading to McChord AFB, WA this summer.

This week has been busy catching up with friends in town on business or just for fun...Greg DeWolf, Tracy, Ty Little, Pete Sheridan, Kurt Kremser, and Blairs' Kaiser. There are a few more folks coming in later this month...

More Podolak Blogs....

The Boulder Podolaks are online now too. Check them out.

Chuck's West Coast Adventures

Chuck had a nice two weeks, skiing with good friends in Whistler, BC, visiting Tumor and Jen in Burlington, VT, and finally spending 5 days out in Oregon doing research. Of course his research site is a scenic portion of the Sandy River, between Portland and Mt. Hood. They just removed the Marmot Dam off of the Sandy River, so of course to reach our research sites, we needed to raft it.... Here are some more photos from that trip.

DC Restaurant Week

DC has a great event at least twice a year called "Restaurant Week". Many of the city's restaurants take part and offer some portion, and sometimes all, of their regular menu for either $20.08 (lunch) or $30.08 (dinner) -- at least three courses. Sister and I tried Oyamel tonight. It was delicious...Mexican-style tapas. Chuck and I tried Ceiba in August 2007. The most exciting part is D.C.'s best restaurants are part of this. I have my list of places to try so I'm ready for the next restaurant week.

Several other cities (Baltimore and Boston) have their own version of restaurant week...google your city and venture to someplace new.

Camera Found

Most of you know how much I love my camera...it has now been recovered. Over Columbus Day weekend, Chuck and I visited with friends and family in Wisconsin. It was a great trip complete with unusually hot weather...not really important but I thought you might enjoy the details. On the way to Milwaukee I realized I left my camera at the Beachkofski's. Jill mailed the camera to us complete with insurance. About two weeks later I realized we didn't have the camera and after several calls to the Madison area and DC post offices it was decided the camera was lost. So paperwork was filed and about a month afterward the camera showed up at Jill's. Conveniently we had ordered a new camera...so now we have two. Chuck is starting to realize why I have a spare for a lot of things we own.

Pics from the weekend in Wisconsin...obviously not a lot of them.

Exciting Weekend -- Visitors and Art

We had an exciting weekend acting like tourists and spending time with friends. Friday afternoon our friend Patti DeMotts stopped by for dinner. On Sunday, long time friends Fred and Melissa Cunningham ventured into the city for dinner. It was exciting to catch up with everyone and hopefully it won't be quite so long next time.

Sunday afternoon, Chuck and I acted like tourists and visited the Edward Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery. It was nice to see a collection of his art and I even have a few new favorites. The exhibit is over next weekend, so if you are in D.C. or it visits your city, it's worth the trip.

We also went to a new restaurant for drinks and truffled frites. It was a nice Sunday afternoon out in DC. The drinks were delicious and the frites--unbeatable! Stop by Poste if you near Chinatown...it's in the Hotel Monaco