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| September 30, 2007 Wyoming Relatives My parents and I drove to Wyoming over the weekend to visit my dad's Aunt Rose and Uncle Chuck, plus their family (Paulette, Jim, Carla and Pat), in Wyoming. They have lived in Wyoming (only one state away!) for 17 years, so it was high time we visited! Everyone was so friendly and nice! It was a real pleasure to meet them and spend the day with them. Rose is the last remaining sibling of my Grandpa Pete's ("the last of the mohicans"), so I asked her for some genealogy information and memories and anecdotes about her parents and other family members. She also had some old photos that she let me scan, and I will be adding them to my online family tree! |
 Chuck, Rose, and Paulette |
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September 24, 2007 Massage I enjoyed a real treat today in the form of a one-hour massage at Beau Visage. My thoughtful husband got me a gift certificate for a massage for Christmas last year, and I finally booked my appointment. It was absolutely wonderful! Thanks, Pete! |
| September 22, 2007 Neighbors Night In an attempt to get to know our neighbors better, we invited six households in our neighborhood over for a little get-together. Some of the neighbors are new, and some we just never really have met, despite having lived here for several years. Although the turnout was smaller than we had hoped for, we really enjoyed getting to know the families who did join us. I served chocolate fondue, pumpkin cake roll, German chocolate brownies, Chex party mix, coffee and punch, and the neighbors brought goodies as well. It will be nice to know their names now when we see them around! (p.s. Autumn is starting to come to our street, but the leaves are not this colorful yet -- this picture is from last year.) |
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September 20, 2007 Visit from Ryan Ryan visited from Grand Junction, spending about a week with my parents. At this blog's recommendation, he and my mom played miniature golf at Colorado Journey, but I guess I had hyped it up too much and they were a little disappointed. (For details, read the update to my blog entry dated 8/17/07). Pete and I had dinner with my parents and Ryan Thursday night (the Boston cream pie I made for the occasion turned out splendidly), and we also played some bean bag toss and got Ryan's camera phone pictures downloaded to the computer. (He has the same model phone that we do, but doesn't have the compatible data cable that we do.) Ryan got to show us his new truck, and was a nice uncle and gave Casey some petting, too. |
| August 22, 2007 Bark in the Park We took Casey to his third annual Bark in the Park event. The Colorado Springs Sky Sox played the Salt Lake Bees and lost 8 to 9. For those of you who are as knowledgeable about baseball as me (i.e. not very knowledgeable), these are minor league baseball teams in the AAA division and serve as "farm teams" for the Colorado Rockies and the Anaheim Angels. The last two innings were especially exciting, as the Sky Sox were ahead, then the Bees caught-up, then out-scored the Sky Sox. Although I enjoyed the game itself, I had the most fun watching all the other dogs frisking and toddling about on the grassy hillside they call "the berm". Along with several other cute dogs, Casey was filmed and appeared on the jumbo-tron! Grandpa Orlin joined us as soon as he could get off work and make it down to Colorado Springs. Casey still has issues barking at other dogs sometimes, but he is growing-up. He let several strangers pet him, and interacted with several dogs without barking, which is huge progress for him! |
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August 19, 2007 Water World I had a very enjoyable time at Water World with Tracey and Linda. We were pleasantly surprised that it was not as crowded as we had feared for it being a weekend. We spent the morning riding the Revolution, the Storm, Lost River of the Pharaos, the Tandemonium, and the Ragin' Colorado. After breaking for lunch, we rented individual tubes, which enabled us to bypass the waiting-for-a-tube lines at River Country, the Lazy River and the Tortuga Run. Although we left the water park around 3:00 due to rain, wind and lightning, we continued to have a great time by heading for the Macaroni Grill, where Linda and I split the Dessert Ravioli and Tracey had soup and an appetizer. It was a day of pure fun that I hope we can continue to do every summer! |
| August 17, 2007 Miniature Golf Pete and I played 18 holes of miniature golf at Colorado Journey on Friday evening. This neat miniature golf course, located near Santa Fe and Belleview, was recommended to me by my cousin Karen. Each of the two courses you can play are Colorado-themed. Some of the highlights on the course we did were: Hole 12 represented the Eisenhower Tunnel (you actually had to walk through a tunnel to follow your ball), Hole 13 represented the Narrow Gauge Railroad (you had to putt your ball between two railroad ties for a stretch), and Holes 2 & 3 represented fossil beds (one of the stone walls was made to look as if dinosaur bones were peeking out). The score sheet had a sentence or two describing the historic or scenic significance represented by each hole. This was perhaps the most creative and well-kempt miniature golf course I have ever played! Highly recommended. After golf, we had dinner at Cafe de France (located at University Blvd. and Wildcat Reserve Pkwy.), which I also highly recommend, as both times I have eaten there now the food has been incredibly delicious. Update: My mom and Ryan went golfing here a month later after reading this glowing review on my blog. I guess I set their expectations a little too high; if you go here, keep in mind that it is miniature golf -- the Eisenhower tunnel is on a miniature scale (you'll have to stoop to fit through it), and the rock sculptures representing the Garden of the Gods are only about 4 feet high. It is still really clean, in good shape (no ripped astro-turf), and the running water winding through the course is pretty. I still highly recommend this place, but I guess I should tell people to not expect things to be on a grand scale. |
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| August 6, 2007 Antique and Vintage Pieces | |
| I did some online research to see if I could gain an idea of how old the china candy dish and teapot I bought this summer in Maryland are. Here is what I found out about dating china and porcelain, especially the small collection of pieces I own. I know that not everyone is as into this as I am, but I thought this was fascinating, so I am putting a summary here. | |
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Candy Dish, c. 1911-1921. (The following is paraphrased from www.antique-china-porcelain-collectibles.com/nippon_china_dinnerware.htm and www.gotheborg.com/marks/noritake.shtml.) The word "Nippon" used in the back stamp of china pieces simply means "Japan." Nippon china was produced for export to the United States from 1865-1921. In 1921, the United States enforced the McKinley Tariff act which prohibited the import of items which were not "plainly marked, stamped, branded or labeled in legible English words." As Nippon was considered the Japanese word for the country of origin, "Japan" being the English equivalent, the period of the Nippon china mark came to an end. While Japan had a long period of porcelain manufacturing, dating back centuries with its close ties to China, Nippon porcelain was produced strictly for Western consumers. Much of the antique Nippon china available has been hand-painted with ornate decorations that, ironically, the Japanese of the era considered excessive and distasteful. During the Meiji period (1868-1912) much of the Nippon porcelain pieces were decorated with gold. Much of this decoration was not very durable and wore away over the years, so it is common today to find Nippon china pieces with the gold rubbed off. Dozens of Nippon china marks were used during this period, representing the work of many different porcelain manufacturers working in Japan at the time. Some of these marks, particularly the "M-wreath" backstamp, represent Morimura Brothers, the predecessor of Noritake, a famous Japanese porcelain producer still in business today. The "M-wreath" mark was used between c. 1911 until 1940. |
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Schumann Teapot, c. 1933-1945. (The following is paraphrased from www.efineantiques.com/schumann2.htm.) Update: The original link appears to have changed to www.efineantiques.com/webpages/schumann2.htm. The Schumann porcelain factory was in production from 1881-1994, and was located in Arzburg, Bavaria. Schumann china is easy to roughly date because the back stamp usually included a country name, and Bavaria was considered to belong to different countries over the years: 1881-1933 = china will probably be marked "Bavaria" 1933-1945 = china will probably be marked "Germany" (Bavaria lost independence to Nazi Germany) 1945-1949 = shortly after WWII, china will probably be marked "Germany, U. S. Zone" 1949-1994 = china will probably be marked "Germany" My teapot says "Germany," which could date it to either the 1933-1945 (Nazi) era or the 1949-1994 era. I believe it to be the Nazi era for two reasons. First, the Schumann factory used this backstamp style and color (the blue lion and crown) in the early part of the 20th century. Second, I was able to determine that this pattern and body shape are what collectors now call "Old Dresden," which was replaced by the similar but fancier "Empress Dresden" in the 1940's or so. Furthermore, the word "Germany" was obviously not part of the original stamp. After reading the web site credited above (and what a fastastic resource it is!!) I believe the tea pot was probably manufactured well before 1933, and marked "Germany" so it could be sold in the 1933-1945 market. |
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Floral Teapot, c. 1920-1939. (This information is paraphrased from www.gotheborg.com/marks/index_jap_marks.htm.) This mark is likely to be from the 1920s to 1930s. It might be of the Hotta Yu Shoten Company. The use of the word "Shoten" indicates the name for a shop which is selling products from its own kiln. This particular company seems to have gone out of business in 1947. My parents bought this teapot for me from an antique shop in Minnesota in 2005. |
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Brown Teapot, c. 1937. This teapot was given to my grandmother, Florence Streich, as a shower gift just before she was married in 1937 (in Minnesota). The bottom says, "Made in Japan." Note that the shape of the handle is similar to the teapot above. |
| August 5, 2007 Late Summer Barbecue Thirteen friends dropped in to see us and partake of Pete's growing-ever-more-famous barbecued beef brisket and pulled pork. We were so happy to see everyone! Our wonderful friends brought so many delicious side dishes and desserts that they barely all fit on the enormous table we had brought up from the basement and decorated with a red, white and blue tablecloth. Guests mingled and played the bean bag toss game until a rain shower forced the guests (and the food) inside. After the rain let up, the die-hards went back outside for several more rounds of bean bags. "A good time was had by all" may sound cliche, but I think it is accurate. We plan to do it again next year! (More pictures here.) |
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| July 29, 2007 Bicycling in Breckenridge/Frisco For the second year in a row, Pete and I spent a day bicycling from Breckenridge to Frisco. It is a lovely paved trail, winding through open meadows as well as forrested areas, and a great place to see wild flowers in bloom. Our new cell phones with built-in cameras had just arrived, so I tucked mine in the pocket of my bike jersey and took a few pictures. Although it's been ordered, we don't have a cable yet to transfer the pictures from the phone to the computer, so I'll just have to say, "Pictures coming soon." It will be interesting to see how high the photo quality is. Update: We received our data cable and can now get our pictures off our phones and onto the computer. The photo quality isn't as good as our other camera, but the portability and spontaneity are great! The rest of the biking photos can be seen here. |
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 July 26, 2007Identity Theft Update In a surprising twist to my identity theft story, the driver's license and credit cards that were stolen from me last month were mailed to me in an anonymous envelope! I called the Nebraska police to see if they would be interested in fingerprinting them. They were; they recommended I have the local Colorado police look over the cards so that it would be more convenient (and immediate) than mailing or driving them to Nebraska. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office sent someone right over, a courteous officer, who examined each card with a flashlight and dusting powder. There was not a single print on any of the cards, including my own prints, which indicates to me that the thief (or whoever returned the cards to me) wiped them clean. Oh well, at least I tried. Later that night, I was paying some bills, and noticed that whoever stole my purse used my cell phone to make four calls before I was able to contact T-Mobile and have my service de-activated. The thief called the 800 numbers of two of my credit cards, a local Nebraska number, and then they called T-Mobile customer service. Heaven knows why they would call my credit cards; was it to report them stolen for me (ha ha)? The Nebraska number is an unlisted number. (I did a reverse phone look-up.) I forwarded my phone bill to the Nebraska police on the off chance that it might be useful to them. |
| July 24, 2007 Rockies Baseball Pete and I attended a Colorado Rockies Game tonight at Coors Field. Although I'm not normally a baseball fan, I had a pretty good time. Because our tickets were part of the Coors Guys' Night Out package, our section was given baseball bingo to play during the game. It made the game more fun, and caused me to pay more attention to the game than I normally would. I also enjoyed eating stadium food -- Dippin' Dots and nachos -- yum! |
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July 22, 2007 Camping Trip Pete, Casey and I went camping and hiking at Estes Park Campground this weekend. We spent two nights in the tent. This campground, unlike the one we stayed at last year, had real bathrooms with running water. The campground claimed to have hot showers, too, but the one shower I took was ice cold. However, I enjoyed cooking shish kabobs and s'mores over the fire, and just sitting around the fire at night. We went hiking on the St. Vrain trail, and it was gorgeous, but I have to admit it made me realize I'm not as in-shape as I once was. After one hour of hiking, we were forced to turn around due to a thunderstorm. We hadn't gotten above treeline yet when we turned around, but we were getting close. Casey loves to hike. Pete and I joked that next time, we were going to make him carry a back-pack like we do so he wouldn't have such an advantage over us. On our last morning at the campground, two deer visited us. They munched leaves off the bushes bordering our site. It was neat to have them that close to us! More pics here. |
 July 12, 2007Happy Endings On our first night back from vacation, we found a lost dog in our neighborhood, wearing nothing but a shock collar. He was a friendly, cute little guy, so we decided to take him in and help him find his family. We called him "John" (short for John Doe). The first evening, we walked all over our neighborhood and some of the surrounding neighborhoods putting up "Found Dog" posters we had made with his picture and our contact info. Casey wasn't entirely welcoming of John, who was about his same size and age. The two dogs spent the entire first night wrestling and fighting for domination while Pete and I were trying to sleep. I think Casey won, as the next night, John slept peacefully on the floor while Casey lay at the foot of our bed. The next day, I searched the internet to learn what breed John was, and determined he was probably a shiba inu. I called our county's animal control department to see if anyone had called missing a shiba inu or any dog that fit John's description -- no one had. At their suggestion, I also took him to the "Buddy Center" (homeless animal shelter) so he could be scanned for microchip identification, but he was not microchipped. No one had called the buddy center, either, missing a dog. I filed an additional "found" report with them. Almost 48 hours went by and we were starting to give-up hope of finding John's owners. We talked about adopting him ourselves, but weren't sure... Suddenly we got a phone call. Pete quizzed the caller about "John" to be sure these people were indeed his real owners. They told us that his real name was Miso, and he was from a neighborhood about a mile away that we had not put our posters in. Apparently, they had put "lost dog" posters up in their neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods, but we hadn't overlapped. A jogger happened to see both their "lost" poster and our "found" poster and called Miso's owners with our phone number! Miso's owners seemed nice, and were happy to see him. I felt better about releasing Miso to them after talking with them for about 15 minutes. We became fond of Miso; I hope they take good care of him! One other note, in case anyone reading this ever loses their dog: call the animal shelters and county animal control every day. Apparently Miso's owners had called the buddy center around the same time I was there having him scanned, and my report hadn't gotten filed in their database yet. If they had called the buddy center the next day, Miso would have been in their records as a found dog. |
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July 7, 2007 Blacker Montgomery Wedding Congratulations, Lew and Erin, who chose 7-7-7 as their wedding date. (Erin is Pete's step-sister.) The event, which started at 7:00 pm, took place at the Sheraton Baltimore North. The bride chose a stunning gown of white and royal purple, and was escorted down the aisle by both parents. The bridesmaids wore a coordinating shade of lavender. The groom and his men looked handsome in black tuxedos with sage green vests. Wedding guests were treated to hors d'oeuvres and wine while the receiving line finished-up, then a delicious dinner, cake, and dancing. This was the first Jewish wedding I had attended. At the ceremony, everything was said in Hebrew, then repeated in English. It was a very special occasion, and I wish the happy couple all the best! p.s. More photos (118 total) can be viewed here. |
 Mike, Pete, and Nick posing for me in the kitchen of Mike and Cathy's new place |
July 4-7, 2007 Maryland After leaving Wisconsin, we drove to Hagerstown, Maryland, where we spent some time with Pete's grandparents. In addition to being good company, they fed us many wonderful meals, and let us do our laundry there (since we'd been on the road for over a week by this time). We also got to see some of Pete's friends from college. Mike and Cathy invited us and some other friends over for a cook-out and to see their new townhome in Frederick, MD. Tim and Rina had the gang over to their home in Silver Spring, MD for a kosher "Thanksgiving in July" turkey dinner, complete with pumpkin pie. We really appreciated our friends making all this effort, because we know it's hard after moving and after working all week! Another long-awaited highlight was getting to meet Charlotte (Nick and Eva's 9-month-old baby) for the first time. What a cutie! (See picture at right.) One of our day trips took us to Bel Air, Maryland, where I did some genealogy research. I struck gold! First, I was elated to find the elusive marriage license of my great-grandparents. Second, I found their listing in the 1910 census and was shocked and delighted to find that there were family members living with them that I never knew about, let alone knew they had come to the United States. I now have more leads to follow the next time I visit Maryland. I also bought a used tea pot and a small china dish from the historical society gift shop. I don't think they are antiques, but they are old. |
 Charlotte on Nick's lap View rest of pics here. |
 The Pabst Mansion |
June 30 - July 2, 2007 Wisconsin Pete and I spent three days seeing the sights in Wisconsin. I really enjoyed our tour of the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee. I would love to live in a house like this (but in a different neighborhood, as this once grand neighborhood has since deteriorated). At the gift shop, I bought piano sheet music for the old Pabst Blue Ribbon jingle "What'll You Have?" which is before my time, but is still a neat souvenir; I've enjoyed playing it since returning home. We spent a full day at the Wisconsin Dells, where we took two guided boat rides (to see two different parts of the river), toured a haunted house (which was actually pretty cheesey), had our photo taken at an old-time portrait studio, and we enjoyed a caramel apple and a root beer float from some of the candy shops on main street. Our final day in Wisconsin started with an early morning tour of a cheese factory (and of course we bought some cheese curds and some cheese). We then spent a very pleasant rest of the day canoeing down the Wisconsin River. (Canoe rented from Point Bluff Resort.) Pete and I both took canoeing lessons in our childhoods, so we were able to maneuver the canoe like pros! Unfortunately, we didn't bring the camera for fear it would get wet. If you want to see the other pictures we did take in Wisconsin, click here. |
 A typical view from our boat ride on the Wisconsin Dells |