owl on books

So. It's been a while. After classes the last semester, I worked fervently on getting the exhibit ready for opening on April 22. We were working until about an hour before it opened on finishing everything, and we managed to get it pretty well done. Not that many people came, which was actually a little disappointing (only people who work at the museum and their family/friends came). But whatever. My mom, Megan, Nathan, Eric, Eric's mom, his grandma and her husband, and my grandparents all came. That was kind of fun. A few pictures:

The case I worked on

The day after the exhibit opened, Eric had to go up to Salt Lake for a conference for his work from Wednesday til Saturday. He helped lots of people with their systems...at least I guess that's what he was doing. I wasn't there. I went up and stayed with him on Friday night, and there was a Sleep Number bed. Eric liked it, but I didn't really. Then on Saturday, I drove to Denver with my boss and a few other girls I work with for the American Association of Museums' annual conference. It was really good. I loved most of the sessions I went to, which basically gave insight into all different aspects of working in the museum profession. I especially loved one called "Stories are Serious Business," which talked about this program that this cooperation of museums was doing where Native Americans tell stories of their heritage in association with exhibits to help visitors better understand the collections.

After the sessions were over every day, we were able to walk around downtown in Denver and eat dinner. On Monday, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for this dinner thing and to walk around and see the exhibits. I had a headache all night, so it probably wasn't as fun as it could have been, but it was ok. Tuesday we went to this Japanese place (kind of like an upscale Panda Express) called Tokyo Joe's, and on Wednesday the museum paid for us to go out to dinner at this Mexican place called Croc's. Yummy food.

The blue bear looking inside the Denver conference center ("I see what you mean")

Dancing people sculpture outside the conference center

At the capitol building - the mile high marker!

A neat sculpture thing outside the Denver Art Museum. It was all about grievances of the U.S. against Native Americans, and includes all sorts of events (AIM movement, Dawes Act, etc.)

After dinner, downtown on the 16th street mall

Yesterday Eric and I went up to Ikea in Draper and got a new bookcase! Now I can actually fit all of my books on one place...without them being strewn all over the living room. It's a pretty color. I love it!

Waiting in line for Iron Man. We were about the 30th people in line, and we got snacks to hold us over while we waited...

Eric wants me to mention that last night, on our way from getting gelato to going to the movie theater to see Iron Man (which was awesome), we saw this guy in a fat sumo wrestler suit riding a longboard down the street. It was so weird...and really hilarious. We tried to get a picture, but he skated away too fast. Surprising for a guy in a sumo suit.