*Parental Musings*

10 Movies This Child of the '80s Wants Her Kids to Learn From

This Dad Has Things Figured Out... (read the article linked)

And a t-shirt Al would definitely sport, the awesome feminist father he will surely be!

And many more to come! (Need to find the time to really update the blog, since we took a long hiatus...)

 

Kid President's Letter to a Person on Their First Day Here + A Grand Tour of Baby Anabel's Room!

Germany & Austria short video highlights ~ June 2013

From the airport into the City Center in Munich - Germany

Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany

Street musicians playing Mozart classics outside of Mozartplatz & the fortress

Salzburg River in Salzburg, Austria

Arrived in Vienna, Austria! 

Schloss Schonbrunn in Vienna, Austria

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Austria

Inside of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Austria
 
Turkish protest in Vienna, Austria (June 2013)

A long overdue update to our blog! Spring - Early Summer 2013

It's been such a long while since we've updated our blog! As you can imagine, a lot has happened within the year since we last posted... we got swept up in the spring and summer seasons with travels and lots of work. I attended three conferences in the spring -- 2 regional ones (Kentucky and Pennsylvania) and the inaugural Faculty Women of Color conference near Chicago, all of which were great professional development opportunities to network, present my work, get feedback, hear about the neat things other people are working on, and venture outside of NC.
Here are a few photographic highlights of each region:
CHICAGO

 PITTSBURGH

LOUISVILLE

Taking a break in between conferencing to check out the small KFC exhibit in downtown Louisville! How delicious does the fake bucket of chicken look?! Yummm.

We also took our first trip back to Texas since moving away! We had two friends' weddings to attend that just so happened to be back-to-back so we figured this a worthwhile reason to make the expense. Also, this was in late April so we celebrated our birthdays belatedly with family and a few friends who made the trip up to San Antonio to see us. As you can see, the party started on our layover in Detroit at the airport! Haha.

Obviously we miss the Tex-Mex food, hands down, number 1 thing we miss about Texas.

Al and I went up to spend the day and night one weekend in Blowing Rock, NC, up in the mountains about an hour or so from where we live. It was soooo coooooold up there but so beautiful too! We found a nice little bed and breakfast to stay at that provided a bottle of wine in the room plus an afternoon wine-tasting, which of course we took advantage of in our stay there. It was relaxing just to hang out in the mountains, stay warm and eat and drink, enjoy our cozy room, and get away from our routines.

We took a trip up to hike Crowder's Mountain one weekend and came back totally pooped out. It was such a great day of exercise and outdoors though. The roundtrip hike is a total of 7 miles! Opal was a little scared of the height once we reached the top of the mountain and she could sense how far up we really were by getting even just a little close to the edge. Poor baby - we hugged her as we took a break to sit on a big rock before hiking back down - she was trembling with fear!

Ew! On our way back down the mountain, we encountered a skinny black snake! It slithered away quickly once it sensed our presence.

We enjoyed the lovely weather around spring/summer in our neighborhood with late afternoon and evening walks together... quality family time!

And we discovered a boba tea place in Charlotte, woohoo! Score! This is one thing we really miss about Houston.

 I attended a seminar in Salzburg, Austria on LGBTQ Issues as Human Rights Issues in early June 2013, which was such an amazing adventure. I was one of about 50 attendees representing 30+ countries from around the world. Academics, activists, attorneys, politicians, folks from NGOs, other forms of grassroots activists, etc. I felt so honored to be a part of such a wonderful week-long seminar in such a gorgeous region of the world. A once in a lifetime opportunity, no doubt! Here are a few highlights of the gorgeousness that is this part of Europe:

Munich, Germany (I arrived a day and a half early to spend some time in Munich before heading to Salzburg)

Airplane food... it was a 9 hour flight across the Atlantic to get to Germany from the U.S.! Longest flight ever but the Lufthansa airlines staff were quite fantastic about making sure we were all comfy.

SO many Volkswagons, VWs, and Audis!

Local soup special recommended by the native waiter at this little outdoor cafe. Yummm.

Pretzel & espresso, of course!

A polka band!

The Germans have produce stands in the middle of the outdoor shopping mall!

Salzburg, Austria (I took the 2 hour train to Salzburg from Munich)

Eis = 1 euro = a perfect snack to chill for a moment in between all the touring!

From the famous movie, The Sound of Music! (of course, I watched it after I had visited Salzburg but it was neat to see places I had just recently been to!)

Team Communication!

Touring the castle with new friends from Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tennessee.

Doesn't it look like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Lovely.

The guard in the music room let me lean out the window to take this picture!

Mozart's home

Vienna, Austria (After the week-long seminar, I took the train to Vienna to spend two days touring this area before flying back to the U.S.)

Dreary rainy day via train... but still so beautiful, watching all the scenery as we pass through Austria...

Cafe melange is a famous coffee in Vienna, a must-have.

You all know I love a good museum!

And that takes us through early summer 2013! We also had many visitors and other travels over the summer that I'll highlight in our next blog post. Stay tuned!