Another great reason to love summer

Hannah is getting close to sticking the flip

Seth gets some serious air

I want to ride my bicycle...

Hannah has upgraded bikes, but has skipped the training wheels and gone straight to learning the two-wheeler. Seth, of course, wanted in on the action.

Weekend fun

Friday evening Stacey and I went out to dinner at Cuba Cuba (downtown) and dessert at the Cheesecake Factory while her mom watched the children. While we enjoyed the evening out, the highlight came after she said we needed to make one more stop. Much to my surprise, and I was absolutely surprised, she had planned an overnight stay for us at the Capitol Hill Mansion Bed and Breakfast.


It was a really great stay and a very pleasant surprise. On Saturday we hung around downtown, went to the peoples' fair, went to the movies ("Up" in 3-D) and enjoyed the Italian Chalk Art festival at Larimer Square. The chalk art was amazing! All in all, a thoroughly memorable and enjoyable weekend.

A good week at work

Last week was one of my better work weeks--ever. Last Friday was the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences awards reception, at which I was presented the College's Excellence in Teaching award as well as the Excellence in Service award (that's 2 of 3 possible awards for the college). Also, my graduate student won the Outstanding M.A. graduate award and another colleague won the Excellence in Teaching award for non-tenure track faculty. A great showing for the department.
Click here for a link to photos from the reception.

On Tuesday I got the news for which I've been holding my breath since last summer--the Provost approved my tenure case. While it still needs to be approved by the Board of Regents, folks tell me that's pretty much pro forma. Since then it's been party, party, party! We had a nice faculty lunch/party (to celebrate my tenure) at PF Chang's this Friday, followed by graduation on Saturday morning and a party for my "Outstanding Graduate Student" that evening. All in all, a pretty good week. Now, back to grading those finals!

Easter fun

What would Easter be without the multiple Easter Egg hunts at home, in the neighborhood and the granddaddy of them all at grandma's house?Wearing the jacket is way better than the morning's rain poncho!  Sarah had to quit at 26 eggs because her basket was maxed out (actually, that was the per-child limit at Grandma's house).

The lottery people should be so lucky to get a photo like this one.

Assessing the haul...

Talents abound

We've been treated to lots of musical shows this month.  David had three band/jazz band concerts and Sarah did two acts in the school talent show, one on piano and one singing duet with her friend.  Here they are singing "Peanut Butter and Jelly".

At David's concert tonight, he got to "trade eights" on a trumpet solo as part of a "Swahili Folk Hymn".  Good times.  Here's a photo from his recent Jazz Band performance at the Spaghetti Dinner fund raiser.

Zoo fun

Haven't forgotten about the bloggg, just have found other good things to occupy our time.  Here are a few updates:

We recently got to enjoy an outing to the Denver Zoo on a beautiful day during Spring Break.  The beauty of Colorado is that even though we get walloped with Spring storms, we also get a smattering of days with beautiful weather.