Mr. & Mrs. Drew Barlow
26 July 2008

Grandma and Grandpa Kelly came to Denver for the Elwood reunion. It was so nice to visit with them. From left to right this is Julia, Penelope, Anna, Fox, Cooper, Mason and Emerald. We had a ball swimming in their pool at the hotel and eating strawberry shortcake. Thank you for making the trip!!!

Hi Family

Im taking over the blog, but wanted to post some pics from our canyoning adventure. To explain it in more detail, basically you are jumping and sliding downa stream on the mountain. You are wearing lots of gear, wetsuit, booties, hiking shoes, overalls (felt like my dad in his Dickees) harness, helmet, lifevest. We drove up to our starting position and then walked down to the zipline and made our way down. Slid down rocks into mini pools, jumped into pools, etc. It was really fun, but very cold! The highest jump was 8 meters, so a little over 26 feet! There was an 11 meter jump that you could do, but the girls were smart and opted to pass on that, but of course the boys all jumped!

Last night I went to the Cinelac (outdoor open air cinema on the lake) with a friend from my French class - Annette. We saw Sex and the City, it was ladies night, hehehe. It was great, the movie was cute even though I never was a real big fan of the tv show, but the setting was perfect, the lake behind the screen, seeing boats in the background and the lights from across the lake, just a perfect way to enjoy a movie. Hoping to go see Kite Runner next Monday with John!

That's it for now, looking forward to another relaxing weekend before the fun and mayhem begins until November!

Sorry these pictures are a bit blurry, it was a waterproof disposable camera and I Dont have any pics of the high jump, my hands were frozen by this point and couldnt push the shutter down hard enough!

Lots of Love, Dana and John Melsom

Hi!

Greetings from Geneva. Our guests have left and we are getting back to our normal lives. It was great to have friends in town, but exhausting. We went canyoning on Saturday, weather turned out to be fine. We were all a bit nervous as it was very cloudy and they warned us that we might not be able to see where we were jumping into, ha! But, all clear, just cold mountain water! I dont have the pics from the canyoning yet, they are being put on CD, had a disposable waterproof camera. Will give a detailed description when I get the pics back.

Anyways, here is a pic of us in Chamonix, France with one of John's best friends Mark, he was one of his best men at the wedding. This is where we went mountain biking a few weekends ago, its super easy to get to and just a nice place to walk around. Its busy all year round with moutain bikers, river rafters, rock climbers, etc. And another pic of us at the baby beach here in Geneva, its about a 12 min walk from our place. Its not a beach like you would see in the Maldives or in CA for that matter, but it does the trick, a place to go for a dip and get some sun, but strange to be looking at the mountains and regular trees, not palm trees.

Hope everyone is doing well, cant believe how fast this summer is flying by, John and I have a few free weekends that we are def taking advantage of by not doing anything!

Lots of love

The Melsom's

I am so excited to share my engagement photos with the family! Here is a sneak peek...
or you can check all of them out at www.barnetphotography.com, click on "weddings"...then click on "clients"... and enter the case sensitive passcode:
Hecht engagement

Love,
Di

Hi Family

Here are a few pics from our weekend mountain biking in Chamonix. Chamonix is a big skiing area near Mont Blanc in France, its about an hours drive away from us in Geneva. The only snow left was on Mont Blanc and the other glaciers that have year-round snow. There were 6 of us, John and I, Gavin (another partner in Johns fund, wore the kilt at our wedding) and his gf Vicks, and Gav's friend from Scotland Lindsey and his gf Susan. We had a guide who had very high expectations of us or he misunderstood our skill level and experience. He said that the difficult trails meant longer (lost in translation), so we decided to do those, ha, there were some uphill trails where all of us had to walk our bikes up, only the guide made it, we would only make it so far and then stop. It was pretty intense and as the guide said, 'technical.' Most of the uphill parts I could manage, but there were some that I didnt even attempt, after watching the boys make it up a few feet, I decided I didnt want to fall off and hurt myself.

So. . . what goes up, must come down, I was super slow on the downhill bits, but John loved it. I would try to go down at a normal speed, but if I was going too fast for my liking, I would get off and walk my bike down, I want to keep all of my teeth, my parents did spend a lot of money on braces and such. John has broken his 2 front teeth mountain biking when he was younger, he has falsees now!

Anyways, it was a great day, we were both pretty sore after, I did make John come shopping with me for padded shorts the day before, heheheh, we wore them under regular shorts. I cant imagine what pain we would have been in had we not worn them. But, we are well now, no more pain and discomfort.

This weekend we have friends coming into town, we are hoping to go canyoning on Saturday, weather permitting, forecast doesnt look good, so we will see. Will def have some pics to share with you if we go. The canyoning would be in Les Marecottes in Switzerland close to Verbier, another big skiing area. Johns parents have a chalet there. Fingers crossed the weather is ok. Lots of Love, Dana and John

Hi Family

Love seeing all of the family news, especially the videos of the babies, makes me laugh, they are all so cute, definintely looking forward to having a family of my own some day. Anyways, still busy out here in Geneva. Since my last post, John and I have been back to London for a friends wedding (which was really nice, despite the rain, never can rely on UK weather) and I started an intensive French course, Mon-Fri for about 4 hours a day, goes until the 31st of this month, so still a ways to go and last weekend John took me to Rome for my 28th bday!

It was great, did lots of sightseeing and ate lots. Anyways, we left on Saturday and returned Monday. Stayed at a beautiful hotel - Hotel de Russie - very close to the Spanish Steps and Piazza de Popolo. After we arrived and checked in, we did a lil sightseeing on our own around the hotel, it was really hot, so didnt go too far. Had dinner at La Terrazza at Hotel Eden which had great views of the city. John had booked a private tour guide to take us around on the Sunday, so thankful he did that because it was so hot we would not have enjoyed the sights as much if we were doing it all on foot or public transportation, was great to hop out, take some pics, have the tour guide show us around and get back into the AC! The tour was really great and we were able to see a lot more than we would have doing it on our own, and of course learn a lot more too!

To recap the sights, we went to the Catacombes of Priscilla, the Christians said that all the dead bodies had to be buried outside of the city walls, so a woman had a labrynth underneath her home, so they used that as the catacombes. The Romans were very small, despite their large depictions and stories. You can tell that they were small from the size of the catacombs, 2 stories deep and 14 km all around. Then we went to the Crypt of the Capuchins. The Capuchins were friars in Rome in the 1600s. Here they arranged the bones of 1400 bodies (from deceased friars and poor Romans) all around the walls to remind us that there is life after death. It was a bit creepy to see all of the bones everywhere.

The other sights were the Pantheon, Piazza Novona, Palantine Hill, the Forum, Colosseum, Arch of Constantine, Vatican (Museums, Sistine Chapel, St Peters Basilica, etc.) Trevi Fountain, various churches and Piazzas. Saw the Pope on the big screen on Sunday giving mass inside St Peters. Its incredible how old these things are, was in awe! Wont go into too much details, but it was a great trip. If I went into detail on every place we would be here for a while. Later that night we had dinner at the hotel in the gardens, beautiful spot and then Monday did a lil more sightseeing and then flew back to Geneva. Back to things here, French class in the morning, John is working and we are off mountain biking this weekend. Hope everyone has a Happy 4th of July! Lots of Love, Dana & John