Heading back down to Corning shortly to see the judging for the flame work we've watched over the last couple of days, then a few more glass shows of the blown glass. There's also lots of vendors with items to sell, food and music.

Great weekend hanging out in the parking garage with VO.
Oh yeah and watching the flame out. That's the competition for the open flame glass workers.

Nice choice, but the Shatner version is already in the reception list.

"Common People" by Pulp.

Does anyone have church song suggestions for the wedding? We need 4 church songs.

Currently we have the Garden Song, but that is it.

Damn, that looks like snow.

The glass festival sounds like a lot of fun. Unfortunately working on my final project and planning a wedding seem to leave me with only little extra time to just relax so haven't been beading much. Hopefully after all this hectic stuff is over I will have more time again.

I have decided the main reason you sign up for a tour that
someone else has planned is so you don't know all of the
wonderful sights you are missing. Part of me just wants to
do the boat tour, ride bikes through all these towns, and
try out the water bikes; but then there's all these really
fabulous sounding museums (Eric, there are more than Houston
has in most of the towns). Anyway it helped pass the extra
hour plus sitting out on the runway in Detroit today,
reading about what to see.
I'm at VO's now, anxiously awaiting going to the Glass
Festival kick-off tonight. I plan to spend the next three
days seeing lots and hearing lots about glass making.

That means Rotterdam

and Delft.

Forgot to mention that both my Grandmother and friend would be more than happy to accommodate you/us!

Merel, thank you for the email. It all sounds wonderful. I'm so excited for this trip and for your wedding.

Ok, now put up a google balloon where the apartment is in Prague so we can start planning our walking tours and the drunk walk back from the reception hall.

It is Maastricht, on the river Maas.

Wikipedia fun:
The name Maastricht is derived from Latin Trajectum ad Mosam (or Mosae Trajectum), meaning 'crossing at the Meuse', and referring to the bridge built by the Romans. The Latin name first appears in medieval documents and it is not known whether this was Maastricht's official name during Roman times.

There is some debate as to whether Maastricht is the oldest city in the Netherlands. Some people consider Nijmegen the oldest, mainly because it was the first settlement in the Netherlands to receive Roman city rights. Maastricht never did, but it may be considerably older as a settlement. In addition, Maastricht can claim uninterrupted habitation since Roman times. A large number of archeological finds confirms this. Nijmegen has a gap in its history: there is practically no evidence of habitation in the early Middle Ages.

A resident of Maastricht is referred to as Maastrichtenaar whilst in the local dialect it is either Mestreechteneer or, colloquially, Sjeng (derived from the formerly popular French name Jean).

esSO: Sorry I'm slow on this. I'm planning to take the Amsterdam book with me on my flight tomorrow and plan specifics for places to visit. I put up the highlights of what I told you from talking to Merel today. For your info the cities we talked about are Delft, The Hague, Rotterdam, Mostrech (sorry that one is probably spelled wrong), and Eindhoven (that's where Merel recommended we fly out of).

Mom,
You need to put more information up regarding the phone conversations you had with Merel and Nathaniel. You told me a bunch of stuff over the phone that I don't remember. What is the Wizzair date we are looking for? What are the towns along the way?

Dougher plans up on Google Docs. Awesome!

Frankie was 2 when he built our deck in Utah....I should dig up those pictures.

Thanks for the update Michele...I love hearing about everyone's happenings.

TAOD: Sounds like a fun weekend. Makes me want to share ours.

End of school adult party Friday night.

Mock swim meet early Saturday morning. Then purchased overpriced swim suit for swim team, kids purple hair coloring and other do dads as well as groceries for supper for Saturday night grill out with friends from Eric's hockey league.

Late yummy breakfast, Monopoly game and 10 mile bike ride Sunday. Payton won Monopoly.

Wasn't quite as hectic a weekend as taod's but was definitely fun filled!

KJ and ?J might have practice with the drills by the time you guys are ready for the floorboards.

Told you I would...pick it up tonight.

Night Owls for Cadette Girl Scouts on Friday night....girls stayed up all night. I am not a good supervisor, I slept.

Daddy-Daughter dance on Saturday night, fairy theme.

Boys were at OA Conclave.

Front yard native flower bed looking good since we cut out out the fine fescue. Also did prep work for the front deck. We'll make sure we time that so RJ, BJ, KJ, & ?J can help us out, since we've taken 3 years on the project already.

Learned to play Small World at NTO's...didn't say we finished it. Did finish a KA game of Settlers of Catan, though.

To top it off, NTO is grilling out tonight. I think I'll need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Probably heading to Cody next weekend, but will be back in time for the Memorial Day parade since we are all in it.

Sorry for dropping the ball, EO. I was busy with lots of feeding the homeless and building houses for Habitat. Couldn't cover your felony conspiracy before now.

I drove a boat. Dylan rode in a boat. We also found wild turkeys on a hike this morning. It was a fun weekend.

Also I went mountain biking for the first time in years. That was tremendous fun.

I talked to my bank, and they provided me the following numbers for my specific bank, but this may give you some ideas for yours:

A debit card would allow me to withdraw from a foreign ATM, but my bank would charge me a $2 fee, Visa would charge me 2% of the transaction, and the foreign ATM would charge me an unknown amount. (A $300 withdrawal would cost $2 + $6 + ??) You do need to verify your card will work in foreign countries.

I can buy foreign currency from my bank. It takes 2 days for delivery. The bank charges $29 if I exchange less than $300 and they charge $19 if I exchange more. (Of course, carrying large sums of money is riskier, and Prague is known for pick-pockets.)

Note: The Czech Republic uses crowns (koruna), while many other countries use the Euro.

Also note: Tracy left the pizza in the fridge.

Happy Birthday Tanya Wagner!

Sounds like everyone has been working hard this morning. Matthew scraped and painted trim on the house. I did some cleaning, mostly picking things up since I'm out of vacuum cleaner bags.
Looking forward to heading to New York next week. Also looking forward to another bike ride with AO before I leave for NY. I want to be in good shape for biking or walking in Amsterdam and Prague so I'm trying to get in lots of exercise before I leave.

helped with the Elmira Downtown clean up this morning then
stopped and picked up some plants. Not sure if I am going to
plant them now or tomorrow. Counting down the days until my
Mommy comes to visit me.