June 30, 2004
To: TSgt Jill McClarney, USAF!
(click on blue underlined words or phrases to view corresponding picture)
This website is primarily a way for us to allow our friends and family from all over the ability to keep up to date on our comings and goings while we are over her in the UK. I know that we haven't gotten very many Ethan pics up lately, and I apologize for that. We actually haven't gotten any new good ones taken lately, but we will be sure to have plenty after our forthcoming trip to Italy with Steph's mom, Boni and her friend, Moni.
That being said, I wanted to post an entry that honors and spotlights my younger sister, Jill. Jill is three years younger than me and enlisted in the US Air Force out of high school in 1993. She was just promoted last week to Tech Sergeant. Her husband, Skip was also promoted to Tech Sergeant last week as well. Congratulations, Jill and Skip!
But the main reason for highlighting her here is for what she is doing right now. About two weeks ago, Jill and her squadron, the 820th Red Horse Squadron out of Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada was deployed to the country of Guyana in South America. This was not a combat mission but a humanitarian one called Project New Horizons. Jill and her squadron were sent there to assist the Guyanese people with building schools, renovating and adding onto schools and improving facilities such as toilets, etc. Her mission there is likely to last into September. While there, they sleep in tents, on inflatable mattresses and under mosquito netting. Their "base" is a makeshift camp made up of the said tents.
What makes this remarkable to me is not only the fact that she is now separated from her family of Skip and 21-month-old Jay for the duration of her deployment (Skip is also all too familiar with separation, having spent long deployments in the Middle Eastern desert in the past - even after Jay was born) but also the reason for the mission in the first place. Right now, the US, its people, its leaders and its military are the focus of intense scrutiny and negative feelings worldwide. When the actions of a few misguided Marines dominate the news, it makes it appear that the US' actions are rogue, cavalier, disrespectful to the human race, etc... It is refreshing to know that the US Military also provides security, well-being, comfort, confidence, etc. to hundreds upon thousands of people throughout the world. It is funny how those things never warrant any lead-story or front-page coverage. There are no feature articles, editorials or round-table discussions about how our military is taking an active non-combative role in the development of other democratic and peace-loving nations around the world. People may argue that the only reason our troop are in the Middle East is because of oil and our own greed. Then why would we be in Guyana? What does Guyana have to offer? Maybe if more of the things that Jill, her squadron and the other servicemen and women around the globe are doing are brought out into the public eye more often, the view of the US by the rest of the world would be a little brighter and more positive.
Thank you, Jill. I am proud of what you are doing. Please pass this along to your squadron and tell them that there are a lot of people back home and around the world that sincerely appreciate and respect what you are doing for your country and for the countries you are helping. I am sure that if you ask any of these Guyanese kids if they agree, they will surely concur.
June 23, 2004
British TV
Ok, we all can probably expect with some reasonability that there are peculiarities amongst different cultures that can sometimes leave you scratching your head or laughing (commonly both). This one (I could spend a LOT of time on more than just this one) I found pretty funny...
On the telly this week, actually listed in the TV guide, is a one minute, yes - one minute show to give the day's pollen count. I guess that the pollen count is important enough to warrant its own listing and not just take a brief graphic spot on the news just before or just after the weather.
Anyone have their own stories or anecdotes?
June 19, 2004
Meet our mates
Here are a few pictures of the folks we hang with out here in Blighty... (click picture to enlarge)
Ahhh, Pints!
The Ferlands (Caden, Captain Derek, Madeline and Dana)
Dublin fools!
Ben, Captain Danielle and Us
Shannon and Ian
We'll miss Alicia and Captain Greg (and future child). They left today to back to the US
Mat, Monique and us
Paul & Pen
June 15, 2004
London Weekend
This weekend Steph and I were able to get down to London sans child for a little bit of good old-fashioned fun in the city without having to worry about diapers, melt-downs and fits. Well, at least child melt-downs and fits, that is. All bets are off when Steph gets tired and hungry. Anyway it was nice to have our very wonderful friends, Mat and Monique watch Ethan on Friday night through Sunday afternoon so that we could enjoy ourselves.
We met up with our good friends, Ben and Danielle on Friday night at the "Hotel of Doom". $150 for four people for two nights sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Well, when you throw in shower mold that could qualify for Dubya's lost WMD and blood splatter on the radiator, all of a sudden that $150 seems like a small fortune to spend on this place. After changing hotels, we finally made it out just past the Central London pub closing time of 11:00 pm. So much for night #1? No. We salvaged it by getting some food and drink at a small Italian restaurant still serving both. After a short stroll back to the hotel, we were able to sit the rest of the night out in the hotel bar and catch up on some beer drinking.
Saturday was a good day of sights and sounds, having taken in The Tower of London, a centuries-old castle in central London adjacent to Tower Bridge, that was the main attraction for executions and torture throughout its medieval history. We were also present at the castle for the canon salute to the Queen's 78th birthday. In the evening we took in a performance of "Stomp!" in the West End. Great performance. If you haven't seen it and it ever comes to your city, we recommend it. Lots of energy and pretty creative. Kids would love it, too. We kept saying Ethan would be pretty fascinated by it.
Saturday night was full of anticipation of hitting an "uuunn - ttss". That will probably only be understood by the four of us, so really that is just a night club/dance club. The "uuunn - ttss" is the gutteral bass and treble sound that the techno music pumps out at those places. Anyway, we were eagerly awaiting a call from locals - Jon Hartley and Phil Penn - to hook up with them.* But, alas, the call never came and we instead dined at 1:00 am at Yo Sushi in So Ho. Yo Sushi's claim to fame is that it is the longest sushi bar in the world. The color-coded plates of food travel along a serpentine route from one end to the other, allowing you to pick and choose whatever you'd like. Then at the end of the night, the attendant comes along and tallies up the colors and their corresponding prices and hands you a bill. Pretty ingenious marketing and sales. When a customer can just reach out, grab and eat without waiting, they usually eat more than they would normally. Even with no "uuunn - ttss", the night was good.
After unfortunately only briefly checking out the British Museum on Sunday, it was time to get back to Ethan. That took us a long time since the main Tube route to get to Monique and Mat's in Chesham, the Metropolitan Line, was down all weekend for engineering work. So, we got there about two hours after we hoped. Thank you big time to M&M for taking him over the wekend! We appreciated it tremendously!
*Thanks Philip for letting me lift the pic from your site. You owe us one, anyway!
(Click on the blue, underlined words above for corresponding pictures)
June 11, 2004
Call Us, Cheap!
If anyone ever would like to call us from the States, it isn't as expensive as you would think if you know the tricks. First of all, the time difference is six hours between England and Central Standard Time (7 hours for Mountain and 8 hours for Pacific). Secondly, in order to get really cheap rates, dial what is called a PIC code. Real simple. If you have ever used a "10-10-ABC" number, you are dialing a PIC code. All that is doing is telling your phone company to route over a specific long distance carrier instead of yor normal one (like AT&T, Sprint, etc.).
To call us, use the PIC code "10-10-987". This PIC code gives really great rates any time of the day or night. Ususally, it will show up as a seperate item on your regular monthly phone bill, but sometimes it may be a separate bill altogether.
So, here's how to call...
Home Phone - 10-10-987 011 44 1284 810 205
Dan's Cell Phone - 10-10-987 011 44 7951 428 012
Steph's Cell Phone - 10-10-987 011 44 7708 269 155
Please, though, remember the time difference! :-)
June 10, 2004
June 09, 2004
Ethan's Day Out
Ethan enjoying the day in Cambridge where temps reached into the 80's for the first time this year. It was leading the news stories all day - no kidding!
A BIG THANK YOU!
Thank You, Dave!
I would like to especially thank Dave Hansen for all of his help in getting this site up and running. He really helped us out with things that we had no clue about! Also, since he helped us out on this, I would like to return the favor by touting another of his abilities. If any of you out there who are thinking of buying or selling a home in Denver, Steph and I would HIGHLY recommend Dave. Not only is he successful, but he works to exhaustion for you and will produce a happy ending for your buying/selling experience! We partnered with Dave when we sold ours and we were elated! Here is his information:
David S Hansen - Broker Associate
The CityScape Team RE/MAX of Cherry Creek
3773 E Alameda Ave, Suite 801
Denver, CO 80209
Main Office: 303.320.1556
Mobile: 720.252.7839
Fax: 720.320.1249
Email: re@davidhansen.net
Web: www.davidhansen.net and www.CityScapeTeam.com
Welcome to our BLOG
Good morning, afternoon or evening!
Welcome to the Stoppenhagen web site or, BLOG (short for Web log). This is a site where we have an ongoing diary of our activities. It isn't your traditional website with fancy graphics or sounds, but here you will be able to check in and see new photos of our lives here in England and also of any travels that we go on. Of course, there will be enough of the obligatory pics and updates of our boy, Ethan, that it will seem that is all we have going on. I assure you, he does consume the far majority of our lives, but you will still be able to come here to see us, too.
We hope that this site will prove to be fun, exciting and informative to all of our friends and relatives that visit it. It has been a long time coming, too. We tried getting our website up and running back in late 2002 after E was born. But, with frustration, we abandoned it until now.
We welcome any of your comments and hope to hear from a lot of friends and family trough this site.
Take care!!
Love,
Dan, Steph and Ethan (Oh, and Alex, too!)
