October 29, 2005
Back in the USA
We have made it back safe and sound to Denver. The week we have had has been one for the books.
After a seven hour flight to Washington DC from London and then a 4 hour flight to Denver, we were traveling for approximately 20 hours or so, if you figure in the drive from Newmarket to London, the wait for our flight, the layover in DC and the drive from the Denver airport to Laura and Dave's house. Ethan did remarkably well on both flights, sleeping for about four hours on the first one. Steph's suffering from a sinus infection made her trip hard for herself and hard for me since her energy level to deal with Ethan was quite limited. All in all, though, it was better than expected.
Our stress level intensified, however, on Monday as we began the search for a house. It is now Saturday night and we have viewed roughly 60 houses in six days. We put an offer in on one today, but it will likely not be accepted as we offered a pretty low price compared to their list price.
Last night offered some respite from the hectic schedule we have been maintaining. We met up with a number of our friends at a wine bar downtown for happy hour so we could bring the kids. Lots of friends and lots of kids made it fun. Continuing today, we relaxed a bit tonight by carving pumpkins for Halloween at Brett and Lisa's house. You can only imagine Ethan's enthusiasm with meeting all of his new friends.
Click HERE for our gallery, where I have uploaded a bunch of pics from the move and our first week back in Denver.
Keep checking back here for updates as we continue our return to Denver and the US.
October 18, 2005
Fitting it in....
London. October 2005
Cramming it all in before we leave is very tiring, indeed. But, someone has to do it, you know.
The GALLERY now has random pictures from various social gatherings and other outings over the past few weeks or so. There are pics from a wine club dinner, Steph's final London visit, our farewell party, Nate and Julie's wirlwind visit last weekend, our last dinner with Maureen and David and a some from my visit to Tuscany.
Sadly, this is likely our last Blog posting from Europe and our last for a little while. It may be a little bit before we have access to a facility or Broadband connection to be able to post anything. So, keep checking periodically and eventually we will get it going again after we settle down a bit in Denver.
Until then...
Ciao,
Adios,
Au revoir
Auf Wiedersehen
Arrivederci
Bye-bye.
October 12, 2005
Safe and Sound
After a 5 and a half hour flight from London to Detroit and then a 24 hour layover before a quick hop to Chicago, Alex is finally back in the good 'ol USA. Thank you to Mom and Dad S. for collecting her from Chicago. Thank you to Michelle and John and the kids for keeping her until Christmas!
Here are pics of her arrival...
At Northwest Airlines Cargo. Ready to break free of the box.
Finally!!! Out of the crate for good!
Not in the van!! Oh well, at least I'm not in that prison anymore!
Can I get up front, please? No, well, I'm comin' anyway!
October 11, 2005
A tribute to Alex 'the not-so wonder dog' -
Ethan's best friend
Alex will embark on a long transatlantic journey on Northwest Airlines - with a layover in beautiful Detroit, she will be ready for a nice steak in Chicago. Thanks to the in-laws for picking her up - we hope she got to relax w/ a few felix movies. See you at X-Mas, Alex!
October 05, 2005
American Wine Tasting
On the 25th of September, Steph and I hosted a little tasting of some nice wines that come from the US. We held the tasting at the Wine Store, where I work. While here in the UK, we noticed how difficult it is to find decent California wines without paying high, high prices. Even the run of the mill stuff was too expensive. Most often all you could find was the mass-produced rubbish with fake geographical names as the brand. Consequently, the image most of our friends - winedrinkers or not, was that California wines were generally sub-par. To illustrate, one of my co-workers at Cambridge Wine Merchants rebuked me as I extolled the virtues of CA wine saying, "Any country that produces White Zinfandel will never produce world-class wines." Ok, ignorant posh twit. Think what you will.
So, I thought that it would be fun to hold a gathering of close friends to share some of our own wines that we had saved for years, along with some new ones that were highly rated. I had my mother and father root through our stored wine at their house for three specific cabernet sauvignons and had three other wines ordered and shipped to them so that they could be my mules and bring them to us when they visited in May.
On the 25th, 11 of us gathered for the evening. These are the showcased wines that night that Steph and I supplied:
1995 Chimney Rock Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
1997 Beringer Knights Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
1997 Guenoc North Coast Cabenrnet Sauvignon
2002 Grgich Hills Napa Valley Zinfandel
2003 Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Napa Valley Chardonnay
2003 Ponzi Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, Oregon
2003 Russack Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills Reserve
In addition, we had the following wines as well. These were brought by some of the guests or supplied by the shop:
2000 Remoissenet Le Montrachet Grand Cru (White Burgundy)
2000 Dufouleur Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru (Red Burgundy)
1996 Ridge Santa Cruz Mountains Merlot
1997 Charles Krug Peter Mondavi Family Reserve Merlot
1996 Miranda Family Reserve Eden Valley Barrossa Valley Shiraz/Cabernet
1993 Chateau Mouton Rothschild
Interestingly, we held a blind tasting of the Le Montrachet (£240.00 per bottle in our shop - roughly $400.00) compared to the $30 bottle of Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay. Ten of us participated in the testing. After tasting, we asked the following questions... "Which one do you think is the Le Montrachet?" and "Which one do you prefer?" Seven out of the ten correctly identified the Le Montrachet, but an astonishin seven out of ten (not the same people) preferred the Shafer! Good fun. Goes to show that price means nothing in a lot of cases. We had the Nuits St. Georges to compare with the Pinot Noir from both Oregon and California Pinots. The Miranda Family Reserve and the Chateau Mouton Rothschild were there to compare to the California Cabernets and the other two to show the Merlot varietal from CA.
A good time, no great time was had by all.
Click HERE to go to the gallery for some pics.