TV Coverage of Latino Studies Minor

Just had to include a link to the local NBC news coverage of the Latino Studies Minor at UMD. Everyone around here is pretty excited. Plus you get to see some nice campus shots on a day when we had beautiful weather! Almost looks like Southern California, doesn't it? (Except that the university is almost as old as the state of California.)

Spring and Other Good Things

Spring is here! We have had some rain in the last couple of weeks, but more significantly, we had 85 degree weather on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I had to find Annelise some t-shirts that fit, and I pulled out Danny's summer clothes. Another sign that spring is here... the tick I found on my leg when I was getting ready this morning! It is quickly getting to be bug season. I am going to have to be diligent with the kids.

Our wonderful little town had a music festival yesterday. At 11am there was kids music. We were able to amble over to the town center from the aquatics center where the kids had just finished their swim lessons. At 7 last night there were fire dancers dancing to punk music. It was a fun (loud) time, and we were able to visit with lots of other families. The music was very good, but the dancing was much more interesting. If you remember Courtney from one of the past Survivors, then imagine a group of people like her dressed in goth gear doing all kinds of cool things with fire. Absolutely amazing. In reality, most of the 30-45 year olds in our town probably listened to punk music at one time. Now they are NASA scientists and University of Maryland professors!

Speaking of University of Maryland, there were two articles in the Washington Post this week about some great advancements for the University in Randy's field of study. The first article was about the possibility of the Latino Studies minor. Randy is currently in the Latino Studies steering committee, so he has been working to help get the Latino Studies minor going. Two of the professors quoted were in our home last week for a dinner and reading group. The second article was about the Latino Studies minor getting approved. Great news for the students and the faculty who are interested in this interdisciplinary minor. Now Randy's courses will get cross-listed for credit in other departments.

Lots of stuff going on, but mostly just day-to-day things!

Family Outing

I will get to Annelise's birthday pictures this week, but until I do this might hold you over.

Now that the weather is a little better, and we are all healthy we are trying to get out more. We didn't do anything new today, but it was still fun. We went to the Air and Space museum and then had a picnic dinner on The Mall. The kids loved running around!




Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the evening:

Catch Up

We are all doing much, much better. Danny's cough is pretty much gone, and he'll have a follow-up on the pneumonia and ear infections this Monday. Annelise is still standing strong. My cough is almost gone (nothing like some good sleep to heal you up). And Randy has been coping with an asthma flare-up. He was diagnosed with asthma last year (at the ripe old age of 31), and hadn't had to worry much about it until he got a doozy of a cold last month. The last two weeks of proper treatment and medicine have made a big difference for him.

So now I get to play blog catch-up!

As I mentioned earlier, my parents were here for three weeks. Other than all of us being sick, we had a really nice time. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Annelise's birthday together. Around Easter time (also Annelise's birthday) we were all pretty miserable, so I think our Easter festivities were pretty restrained. We didn't even have our Easter dinner until the following Saturday.

St. Patrick's Day breakfast included green pancakes!


dyeing Easter eggs


making "nests" with Meema


an egg hunt at our local park

looking for eggs in the living and dining room


And fun was had by all! More on Annelise's birthday (Easter Sunday) soon!

More of the Same

In truth, I shouldn't title a post that because lots of great things have happened this month. Annelise turned 2, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day and Easter, and my parents have been here for the last THREE WEEKS! Yippee!

Unfortunately we have all been under the weather. We have all received first and second diagnoses. I'm not sure which doctors are right, and since we all have different ones, we all got different diagnoses. Right now it stands that I have bronchitis, and Danny has pneumonia and both ears are infected. This may change, though. I do know that I don't have the flu (which I originally thought) or strep throat (those are the two tests they gave me at my doctor). Our bathroom and kitchen counters look like elaborate medicine cabinets with lots and lots of bottles and containers. After coughing for 3 weeks, I finally got some cough medicine with codeine so I can sleep at night. The last three nights have been much, much better. Randy goes to the doctor today, so we'll see! If you remember, Randy had pneumonia last winter, so we are kind of thinking he might have it again. Danny hasn't had a fever since Friday, so he finally returned to school on Monday. Annelise is just coughing, so we'll see how she holds up. My parents managed to get colds with coughs from us and a stomach bug for my dad, but they have held up reasonably well in what should be a quarantined house.

I am at my wits end with how to handle all this sickness. Next winter HAS TO BE different! Any ideas for keeping all of us a little healthier next winter(except for us hiding out and never coming into contact with the outside world)? I just took a peek at my archives (November '06-February'07) and it is disgusting!

I have lots of great pictures for you all... so stay tuned!