Montreal S'il Vous Plait

From December 8-12 I've been attending an international conference for Information Systems academics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its been cold outside but I've never left the hotel except to go the mall via underground tunnel, so I never had to put on an overcoat. This is me in action at the conference with a professor in the Microsoft booth. My colleague Brad (far right) is talking to another group of faculty.

My room is on the 12th floor of the hotel and my window looks out over a Roman Catholic basilica that was built in the early 1800's. I will go inside tomorrow, but thought you'd appreciate the night view from my hotel room window.

This is the alter inside of the cathedral.

This manger scene was on the left side of main hall way. The figures are approximately life size. Notice that the baby Jesus was covered. I'm not sure why...maybe they don't take off the cover until Christmas?

While I was taking pictures I found a Canadian dollar coin on the floor in one of the pews. I put it in the poor box.

This is a view of the cealing of the main dome directly above the alter. The round pictures are pretty interesting.

All of the Arch-Bishops that have served in the cathedral are buried in a mausoleum off of the chapel. I believe this is either the first or the last. The picture was taken through an wrough-iron gate.

This is my hotel in the background and the cathral in the foreground. The title reads "Basilica Mary Queen of the World"

This was taken in the basement mall attached to the hotel. I'm not sure why a women's lingerie shop reminded me of Jarom but it did so I took a picture of the sign.

Remember When Seth Only Ate Yogurt?

My boss let me take the family out for dinner for my birthday on the company, so we decided to go to Landry's Seafood House here in Denver. The following two pictures (taken with my cell phone so the quality isn't very good) document that Seth has come a long way since yogurt and cereral days. Yup, that happens to be the Filet & Lobster platter with a dish of "shrooms" and a big baked potato.

Seth diggin' in


Yummy steak, but the lobster tail didn't make it to the take-home box. Seth says it tastes like shrimp but BIG.

A Tribute to Molly

This post is a tribute to Molly, who is on "emergency leave" from her job as a special needs aid at Heritage Elementary School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado in order to provide live-in child care for Janie Hopkin in Boston, MA while her mother Staci (Molly's older sister) is on constant bedrest from her pregnancy. Since she's not living with us right now, I thought I'd post a couple pictures of Molly at her very best; taking care of Janie!

Jane's Halloween costume at the church party.


Fish faces

Homemade Christmas wrapping paper?

Janie's great sense of humor...

Microsoft Cruise Days 2 & 3

Every night I got my bed turned down and the room attendant leaves a towel origami on the bed. I thought this puppy looked pretty good.

Disney has two cruise ships. The Disney Wonder (the ship I was on) is in the foreground and does four-day trips to the Bahamas. The Disney Magic does 7-day trans-Atlantic trips. Hurricane Noel did made a mess on Disney's private island and the the Magic couldn't go there as scheduled so they diverted to Nassau. This is the first time in three years that the two ships have been together at the same time.

I rented a bike for $6 and rode around Disney's island "Castaway Cay". We docked there for a day. We were there the day after the Magic was supposed to be there. By then they'd cleaned up a bit, although the water was pretty cloudy from all the waves, so I didn't do any snorkeling this time, although I did rent a Hobie Cat for a couple of hours and had a lot of fun.

I saw this really pretty shell on the ground, and when I went to pick it up, it crawled! It was a hermit crab in the wild! The crab walked right across my path and then over to a tree and started climbing it! Here is the exciting video: it's at least as exciting as Jarom's buck. Here is the crab on the ground.

Here is the crab climbing the tree.

Microsoft Cruise: Day One

I'm off on another gruelling assignment with Microsoft. I thought I'd update my blog as we leave shore.

My stateroom. We signed a contract for a certain number of rooms and since we didn't have enough people sign up, the Microsoft ADEs all got our own rooms. The queen-size bed will be very welcome!




This is the mandatory lift-boat drill.


Hurricane Noal is soaking the Atlantic, and we received a bit of rain doreckside during the day. This picture was taken of me just minutes before the boat pushed off. Notice the rainbow!

The New TV

Last week we set up the new TV. Mom gets the credit for finding the cool stand that didn't cost a fortune. Notice the ghetto rabbit ear antenna. Credit the ultra sharp picture to the fact that (1) Fox transmits in both analog and digital formats, and (2) our new TV can receive digital. We are watching Channel 31.1 . Mom and Seth are watching the Colorado Rockies get their trash kicked in Game 1 of the World Series. Game two was almost as depressing as the Rockies couldn't seem to get anything going. The bad pitching calls by the ump didn't help. Interestingly, Mom has watched both games until she had to go to work, most of the time on speaker-phone with Staci in Boston, who helps us understand all the subtle nuances of being a Red Sox fan and Fenway Park.

Seth's First Homecoming Dance

Thunderridge High School held their homecoming dance on Saturday, September 29th. Most of Seth's seminary class attended, and since only a few are dating age ie: 16, they all went as a group. They met beforehand at a friend's house (Chris Chambers) for dinner and then had a "fondue" afterwards at the same place. Seth's opinion of the dance itself was so-so; it's hard to get into a dance where almost all of the music is rap. Here are a few pictures of the big night.

Seth in front of the car that (a) he wished we owned (b) he was old enough to drive (thank-you John and Traci!)



Seth's Jeesh (from left to right: Cameron Babcock, Austin Hansen, Christ Chambers, Jeshua Barnett, Seth Guthrie)

Group photo of the seminary class attendees:

The Ladies (from left to right: Abbi Rossberg, Jessica Gibbs, Tenille Stucki, Devon Hansen, Emily Isakson)