Noah is 2 years old!

Well, it’s a little hard to believe, but little Noah Linden is 2 years old!

We had a great trip out to Chicago and Michigan for 2 birthday parties out there, and then came back to have a 3rd party with all of his friends here in Boulder. Lots of cake and candles…times 3

Below is a gallery of photos from the vacation in Chicago and Michigan, as well as his birthday party here in Boulder. If you’re reading this in your email inbox, you may want to go to Noah’s blog site to see the gallery, since I’m not sure that the gallery photos will appear properly in the email version of this post. (To get there, click on the blog post title in this email, and then click on the small preview images in the gallery that’s in this post to see the photos full size. Use the arrows at the bottom of the photos to get to the next photo.)

Antigua 2010 – day 9

Last day in Antigua today. Feels like the perfect amount of time here. We’re ready to go home, but also feel at peace here.

Today we dove back in to a market in town that has many booths of local people selling goods, mostly hand-made goods from the Mayans.

The people in the booths are the used car salesman of this place. The sell you things more aggressively than I’ve seen anywhere else. They also play games with you…haggling games. You can almost always work them down to half of the price they start out with, and if you don’t feel like haggling, you can simply ask them how much for something, pause, then say you’re going to go look around and think about it…and they drop the price right in front of you….

Antigua 2010 – Day 7

My business meetings have ended now, after 3 days of all day meetings. Things went very well with the meetings and we got a lot accomplished.

The hardest part of it all was not being able to help Bari with Noah, and to not be able to be with them while they went out and about in town. But I did what I could after the meetings ended each day, and got to spend a little time with them during lunch each day.

Yesterday, for lunch, the whole Joomlashack team went up to a coffee plantation to have lunch at the restaurant there and to take a tour of the coffee fields and the processing plant. It was pretty interesting, actually. I had no idea that coffee was so work intensive to create.

Antigua – Day 3

Seems like we’ve been here a week already! Hard to believe it’s only been three days.

Today we went to see a hotel that is also a living museum…they are both intertwined.

The hotel is called Casa de Santo Domingo, I believe, and it’s been built in and around a very old convent and church that was built in 1500.

They’ve got a big rubber roof over what’s left of the main church area, and many of the ruins are very well preserved, as you’ll see in the photos.

Enjoy

Here’s the link to the flickr set again. I haven’t found a photo gallery plugin for WordPress that I like yet, so I’ll just keep using the flickr gallery for now.

Comments are just below the photos:

Click here to see the photos on flickr

Antigua 2010 – Day 2

Hi All,

Day two in Antigua has come to an end.

Here’s some new pics…just double click on the first one to bring up a slide show that you can move through. To close the slideshow, just click once on any image in the slideshow:

[View with PicLens]

If you’re having any trouble seeing those photos, you can also see them in the flickr set here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25359449@N05/sets/72157623476868468/

Pretty simple day today, mostly focused on getting in to town for various meals and adventures.

We have a window between when Noah wakes up in the morning (around 7:00 or 7:30 am) and when he needs to go down for a nap (around noon or 1 pm) where we can head out and do some exploring of the town.

Today we went up and down some new streets, checked out many new restaurants and bakeries, and bought Noah a great little marimba set (we’ve been wanting to get him one for a long time.)

Papa has learned how to count in spanish better now, so buying things is a little easier. I still barely know spanish though, so it’s making things challenging for me.

More of today’s story after the read more break:

Antigua 2010 – Day 1

First day in Antigua, Guatemala!

Two trips walking around this beautiful town. Riding in a tuk tuk taxi. Dinner at a great italian restaurant. Nooey had tons and tons of noo-noos with parmesean tree. 4 hour nap for Noah. Marriachi band at night at the bed and breakfast in the courtyard. 72 degrees most of the day. Lots of people here. Papa can’t remember how to count in Spanish…had some trouble paying for lunch.

Dancing Noah (loves Mariachi music.) Dipped his finger in mama’s wine and like it. Had three or four dips. Lots of truck, motorcycles, horses and carts. All the roads are bumpy cobble stones. Slower pace in this town. Amazing, amazing doors and walls everywhere you look. Ancient ruins of old churches and convents from the 1500′s.

Here’s a link to some pics from the first day:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25359449@N05/

Love to all…

Noah’s First Trip To Linden Hills

We’re back home now from our vacation with Noah out to Linden Hills and have been busy getting back to work.

I’ve finally had a wee bit of time to create a little collection of video clips from the trip, which was a wonderful one.

Thank you to everyone who traveled to see Noah and visit with everyone. He loved meeting and spending time with you all! We look forward to having Noah meet the rest of his relatives who weren’t there, and for him to be able to spend time with folks in the family he has met, but who weren’t there for this trip. He’s a very extroverted little fellow and loves to meet and play with all kinds of people, so we can’t wait for him to meet everyone in the family.

Hope you enjoy the video, which can be seen when you click to read the full blog post.