Blogs from Minnesota, United States, North America - page 69

We went to Cheyenne, Wyoming this past weekend with every living thing that we own in our Volvo. We packed up all of our plants, our fish, Horace, and our cat, Daisy Pants and drove across the plains of Nebraska. The funny part was that the air conditioning in my Volvo has been broken for awhile, and it was about 85 degrees across Nebraska. We used old-fashioned air conditioning. My mother-in-law, Cheryl, calls it the 4-75, 4 windows down at 75 miles per hour. It was a little windy in the car, but we all did great and got there in one piece. We went to Cheyenne mainly because Cheryl was graduating from LCCC with her Associates Degree (Congratulations, Cheryl!!) and we wanted to help her celebrate. We decided that since we were already making the ... read more

I am the lucky recipient of two junior fellowships from my college--the Allen & Irene Salisbury Student Fellowship and the Chang-Lan Fellowship. These fellowships will allow me to explore firsthand liberal theology in Hong Kong and Beijing this summer. The money was just deposited in my bank account this week, and I made my first purchase for the trip today--my plane ticket. I'll be leaving from Toledo at 10:00 AM on June 13, but the journey has already begun, and I don't think I could be more excited.... read more

We're only a couple months away from the start of our Guatemalan adventure! In fact, it feels like we are already there, what with the balmy 30 degree spring days in Minnesota and all. We started to wonder if it was ever going to warm up this spring. A few weeks back we had a few days that hinted at spring. However, they were abruptly ended with a week below freezing. The big news this time is that we purchased our plane tickets this weekend. Yep, two round-trip tickets (those of you who were wondering if we were coming back can now breathe a sigh of relief). We are scheduled to leave July 5th and return mid-January. We also registered for language school at Celas Maya. It's really happening!!! We started to go through our belongings ... read more

The Conley family is 100 percent Irish; all of my immediate ancestors emigrated from Ireland to Chicago. (Angie's family, by contrast, has been tainted by some Czech and Scottish blood.) Nonetheless, I recently sent a DNA sample to the National Geographic Genographic project. They analyzed my Y-chromosome, the one that is passed directly from father to son, and identified specific mutations that make it possible to trace my ancestors’ wanderings after leaving Africa some 45,000 years ago. I just received the results last week. Imagine my surprise upon learning, on the eve of our trip to Spain, that my ancestors probably came to Ireland from Spain. The report from National Geographic indicates that I am a member of haplogroup R1b. This is the most common genetic marker in Western Europe; in parts of Spain and ... read more

Here a couple of "before" pictures: our family Christmas card from December 2006, and a picture from Angie's and my trip to Granada in October 2006.... read more