Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Horseshoes
Anthony played horseshoes for a while.
Horseshoes.JPG
Originally uploaded by anthonystaufferholysmoke
Horseshoes.JPG
Originally uploaded by anthonystaufferholysmoke
Dad and grad
Bennett gave a heartfelt speech about his son before they cut the cake...it was touching.
Joi the grad
Our pastors' daughter, Joi. She received a full athletic scholarship (volleyball) to attend a university in Michigan.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Back Home Again
I absolutely LOVE traveling, but I hate the process of traveling. I left Chile last night at 8:50pm and arrived in Miami around 5:30 this morning. After a 5-hour layover in Miami, I finally got on my plane to Philadelphia (which was delayed by about an hour). I almost missed my connecting flight to Philly, but by the grace of God, the plane hadn't arrived yet, and was delayed by about 30 minutes. It's good to be home! Anthony and I will be off to Sweden again in about 2 weeks to visit with his sister Miki and her family. We're really excited about that trip.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Pictures from Chile
For some reason, I couldn't post pictures to the blog yesterday, so you'll have to go down a few entries to see what I wrote about my trip to Chile.
Santiago, Chile
This is the husband and wife research team on the right, their 13-yr-old daughter in the middle, and me and Sharon on the left.
This is for Anthony...it is the major telecommunications company. Any idea what look they were going for with this building?
I should have known I was in the right country when I saw this. This is the warning that comes on all cigarette packs. It translates as "Caution! These cigarettes are killing you."Big Mary, Little Jesus? Hmmm...
Catholicism is central to the culture here. When we got to the top of the mountain (by the national park), we saw this huge statue of Mary. You can get an idea of the scale by looking at the people at the bottom of the statue. There were huge stairs leading up to Mary.
This statue of Jesus was like a tenth of the size of Mary, at the bottom of the stairs, and off in a little cove. Completely different from the way I see things! They have mass here on Sundays.Santiago views
There are breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains here.
I love this picture, because it looks like the sun is trying to burst through the clouds. The cloud cover was so thick, which is typical for Santiago because of the surrounding mountains (no ventilation). They only get relief when it rains, which it did this day. The rain clears up the sky and the result is...
THIS! Amazing views of the snow-capped Andes mountains.The Fundicular
Me, my student and my colleague on the ski-lift thingy, going up the side of the mountain through Santiago's national park. It was soooo scary, but the view was amazing. The thought of being suspended so high above the ground, in a ski-lift thingy that is held up and moving across a thin cable...ugh...nauseating!
Sharon, pretending she was scared. She actually was voicing her fear before we got up there, but I was the one who started freaking out as soon as we got in!
A view from the outside...this is what we were riding in!The Winery
This was how the vineyards looked at Concho y Toro, the biggest winery in Chile. There are rose bushes at the front of each row so that the parasites attack the roses instead of the grapes. They are at the end of the harvest, so most of the grapes were gone.
Wine barrels - that's me in the orange scarf.Great dining
This was our first night out, at a little tapas restaurant. Tapas are little meals, and they are common in Spain.
This was the most classy Pizza Hut I've ever seen!Friday, June 01, 2007
Chile
I've been in Santiago, Chile (South America) since Monday morning. I left Sunday afternoon (5pm) and arrived Monday morning, at 8:30am. It's neat, because we're in the same time zone, so there's no time difference between here and Pennsylvania. It's winter here, and they'll go forward an hour in the spring, when we go back an hour in the fall...there'll be a 2 hour difference between us in September.
I was asked to collaborate on a childhood obesity project here, with some colleagues of mine that I was in grad school with. It's a husband and wife research team...they are the sweetest couple you've ever met. Their daughters were in my study when they were still in State College (they left in 2000), and now their daughters are teenagers...it was crazy to see them all grown up.
I brought my student, Sharon, along with me, because she is interested in working with Latino populations, and she's fluent in Spanish. I speak enough Spanish to get by, but I've kinda been depending on her to help us navigate the system. When we haven't been working, we've been sight seeing...we went to the oldest winery in Chile, and yesterday we rode something similar to a ski lift up the mountain. The mountain separated the north and south sides of Santiago, and it was so beautiful.
This is one of the driest countries in South America, but it rained for the first time in months yesterday. Because they're surrounded by mountains, there is little ventilation, so there's a lot of smog...they only get relief when it rains, so yesterday was the first day we saw the Andes mountains, and they had snow on them! Tomorrow we'll take a tour of the coast/beach area, which is supposed to be beautiful even in the winter. By the way, winter here is like Fall in Pennsylvania...low to mid 60s. We'll be leaving on Sunday night and with all the stinking transfers, we won't be back in State College until late Monday afternoon. I love traveling, but it's the "getting there" that stinks.
Enjoy the pics.
I was asked to collaborate on a childhood obesity project here, with some colleagues of mine that I was in grad school with. It's a husband and wife research team...they are the sweetest couple you've ever met. Their daughters were in my study when they were still in State College (they left in 2000), and now their daughters are teenagers...it was crazy to see them all grown up.
I brought my student, Sharon, along with me, because she is interested in working with Latino populations, and she's fluent in Spanish. I speak enough Spanish to get by, but I've kinda been depending on her to help us navigate the system. When we haven't been working, we've been sight seeing...we went to the oldest winery in Chile, and yesterday we rode something similar to a ski lift up the mountain. The mountain separated the north and south sides of Santiago, and it was so beautiful.
This is one of the driest countries in South America, but it rained for the first time in months yesterday. Because they're surrounded by mountains, there is little ventilation, so there's a lot of smog...they only get relief when it rains, so yesterday was the first day we saw the Andes mountains, and they had snow on them! Tomorrow we'll take a tour of the coast/beach area, which is supposed to be beautiful even in the winter. By the way, winter here is like Fall in Pennsylvania...low to mid 60s. We'll be leaving on Sunday night and with all the stinking transfers, we won't be back in State College until late Monday afternoon. I love traveling, but it's the "getting there" that stinks.
Enjoy the pics.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Happy Day
Today we celebrated 4 wonderful years of marriage. It seems like we were just running around yesterday, trying to figure out where we would have our reception, and finally settling on a little bed & breakfast that doubled as a mini-farm (The Inn at Walnut Acres). When we went to look at it, there were huge turkeys running around, and turkey poo all over the ground. Plus, there was the unforgiving stench of cow manure. I remember feeling horrified for fear of what my city-slicker family and friends from New York would think. I had already dealt with them calling me cow country girl for years.
Anthony was out at the Inn at 7am on our wedding day, setting up tables and chairs...IN THE RAIN! I had a peace that morning, knowing that even if it was raining, we were still going to have an awesome time. It continued to rain that morning, but I remember looking out the church windows during the wedding ceremony and seeing the sun shining so bright, it made me squint. I thought, "the Lord is smiling on us." And the sun kept shining the rest of the day.
I sometimes wish I could live that day over again....I was so relaxed and happy. I married the most awesome man in the world...he is such a strong, honest, faithful, ambitious man, and words can't express how much I love him. Every year gets better and better, and I always thank God for the gift of love.
I am attaching 2 pictures from our wedding reception...ahhh, precious memories.
Anthony was out at the Inn at 7am on our wedding day, setting up tables and chairs...IN THE RAIN! I had a peace that morning, knowing that even if it was raining, we were still going to have an awesome time. It continued to rain that morning, but I remember looking out the church windows during the wedding ceremony and seeing the sun shining so bright, it made me squint. I thought, "the Lord is smiling on us." And the sun kept shining the rest of the day.
I sometimes wish I could live that day over again....I was so relaxed and happy. I married the most awesome man in the world...he is such a strong, honest, faithful, ambitious man, and words can't express how much I love him. Every year gets better and better, and I always thank God for the gift of love.
I am attaching 2 pictures from our wedding reception...ahhh, precious memories.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Blair County Arts Festival
Anthony and his band had a gig in Altoona, PA, at the Blair County Arts Festival. I was worried that they would get rained out, but it turned out to be a beautiful, sunny, warm afternoon. The band rocked, as usual, and even though you couldn't tell from the crowd during the show, the applause and comments after the show let us know that they really enjoyed it. Anthony already had some comments on his website after the show from people who were there. I sang backup on a few songs, and this is the first time that I really felt like the band was having fun on stage. There was a guy there from the radio station, who was also a writer for the PA musician. He wanted a CD, and we heard that he played one of Anthony's songs on his radio show last night (Sunday). He sounded like he really enjoyed the music, and is planning on featuring them in his article next month. Wish you all could have been there!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Long time no...write
I can't believe it's been almost 10 months since I've posted a message! My last blog coincided with the beginning of this past school year, so I can understand what happened. Today happened to be one of those days when I don't have much of anything to do, so I'm really relaxed. I think I enjoy reading blogs more than I enjoy posting. I want to write more, but I think this whole blog thing can become a bit of an addiction.
There is nothing very new from us here in Cow Country, PA, other than making plans to fix up the fixer-upper we bought and haven't fixed up yet. Below is a picture of what our floors will look like in the next few months. It's actually one box of bamboo flooring that we bought to see how we'd like it. We had to take a picture to see what it would actually look like en mass, because it was hard to visualize it as a small patch against the carpet we have now.
The semester is almost over (next week), and this was a great school year for me, even though it felt busier than last year. I've been traveling a lot, as usual, and will be traveling every month for the next few months. All business, except for a person trip to visit Anthony's sister in Sweden that I'm tacking on to a business trip to Norway. Anthony will join me after my conference is over....I'm really excited about it. We plan to stay with his sister Miki and her family in Umea, Sweden for a few days, and then take a train trip through a few neighboring countries. We'll certainly have many pictures to share from that trip.
For now, a picture of our bamboo floor patch will have to suffice.
There is nothing very new from us here in Cow Country, PA, other than making plans to fix up the fixer-upper we bought and haven't fixed up yet. Below is a picture of what our floors will look like in the next few months. It's actually one box of bamboo flooring that we bought to see how we'd like it. We had to take a picture to see what it would actually look like en mass, because it was hard to visualize it as a small patch against the carpet we have now.
The semester is almost over (next week), and this was a great school year for me, even though it felt busier than last year. I've been traveling a lot, as usual, and will be traveling every month for the next few months. All business, except for a person trip to visit Anthony's sister in Sweden that I'm tacking on to a business trip to Norway. Anthony will join me after my conference is over....I'm really excited about it. We plan to stay with his sister Miki and her family in Umea, Sweden for a few days, and then take a train trip through a few neighboring countries. We'll certainly have many pictures to share from that trip.
For now, a picture of our bamboo floor patch will have to suffice.
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