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News Archive: July 08 - Started the month off with Gammy in town and our 3rd of July event. Jim doing his normal travel to Austin TX and Dot was off to Indianapolis to see her mother. House renovations with the master bedroom currently completely gutted. Our contractor lacerated his thumb pretty badly which has slowed things down considerably. June 08 - Spring arrived slowly this year but we finally got out on the boat on the 2nd day of the month. Phase 2 of the remodel starts this week with a new entry way and powder room. Hopefully all spiffed up before our July 3rd party. Jim went to Torino Italy for a business trip (see photo album) and returned via Philadelphia with Gammy for a nice visit to Lake Petenwell in Wisconsin (photo gallery) and to join the 3rd of July party. May 08 - Evan came home for Mother's Day weekend and we all celebrated M-Day as well as Jim's birthday. We all went to see "A Midsummer's Night Dream" at the Guthrie theater. A little bazaar but quite fun. Jim gets a Wii :-) Feb 08 - Started off February with a double celebration. A Mardi Gras party of the St. Stephen's social group and of course it was Ground Hogs day as well. Pictures are posted in the Photo Gallery. Nice to be able to get a double celebration in. Finally stumbled across the "before" pictures of the kitchen so new photos are posted if you want to see the before and after. Jan 08 - Braving the cold Minnesota winter. Jim had a work event in Northern Wisconsin where they bowled with frozen turkeys on the ice, drove snowmobiles blindfolded, and played golf in the snow. Fortunately the week event was in between our really cold days. Then he was off to Austin, TX for a week followed by a last minute trip to Germany for a one day meeting during the last week of the month. Dec 07 - Enjoying our new kitchen. Dot cooked up a few batches of cookies using the new convection oven. She really liked being able to two cookie sheets at a time which never worked out very well before. I cancelled my trip to Austin so I was home for 3 weeks straight which is a first. The travel gears up again after the new year. We hosted bridge group for a Christmas party which was a lot a fun and we gave the new kitchen quite a workout. Evan flew in the Wednesday before Christmas and stayed until the 26th. Brent and Natalie came over for Christmas Eve dinner and then they headed up to her folks on Christmas day. Pictures in the Photo Album Nov 07 - We've had a busy fall. We had a short trip to Las Vegas at the end of October. Saw a Vegas review, a variety show and the Blue Man Group which was fun but a bit weird. The kitchen is now done except for a couple of small touch up items but we are now once again able to cook inside. I did give the gas grill a workout but its too cold for that to be fun anymore. Jim also made a couple of business trips to Shanghai and then Munich. Brent and Natalie hosted our Thanksgiving feast. Brent cooked up some wonderful new recipes with lots of fresh herbs which was really great. After dinner we all played with the Wii. I pummeled Dot in boxing although she did have me down on the canvas a couple of times. We also played Guitar Hero so we all got a chance to be a rock star. Unfortunately I was booed off the stage. April 07 - Jim was off to Thailand for a sales meeting. After his part of the meeting was done he took off for the jungle and an elephant ride (see photos). Evan started his rotation as a salesperson to help him with his recruiting of sales engineers. When a salesperson left the company they actually gave him a territory to work and not just shadow another salesperson. Made a sale his first week. Now why doesn't that surprise me. Mom's birthday party in Willow Street was the highlight of the month with a good chunk of the clan gathering for the event. Feb 07 - Jim went to Austria for a meeting. Although he was in the alps it rained in the village most of the time and he didn't have any chance to ski. November 06 - November sends Jim traveling to Las Vegas for a marketing conference. Then its off to Yokohama for a meeting followed by a relaxing Thanksgiving week off. October 06 - October was a month of travel for Jim while Dot and Yogi held down the fort. Jim spent a week in Nashville for an Emerson customer event, a short trip to Sarnia, Canada to visit customers, and a week in Houston for the annual trade show. Dot attended a Leadership conference and has been asked to help organize the next one which will be include the entire United Heath Group instead of just her business unit. September 06 - Dotti and Jim visited Evan over the Labor Day weekend. Saw the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum, did a Chicago Architectural River Boat Tour, attended the Jazz Festival and more. August 06 - Jim did four days working on a Habitat for Humanity project. 3 Russians from a company recently acquired by Emerson visited for dinner after a 3 month stay. June 06 - June was the month to regroup after a hectic May. Evan began his new job with Keyence on May 30th. He has now completed his training which was mostly out of their NJ office but did include a side trip to Atlanta. He has spent some time riding with salespeople to get a feel for the business. A couple of domestic trips for Jim (Parachute, CO - don't blink or you'll miss it). And Dot spent a week in Long Beach, MS building two houses for Katrina victims. Dot's trip included a 24 hour bus ride (yuck!) and 100 degree heat. She also got to sleep in a room with 99 other people. May 06 - May was the month that just flew by. Jim had another trip to Italy. Milan this time for a 3 day meeting. Immediately upon arriving at the Minneapolis airport from Italy we drove to Madison for Evan's graduation on Sunday May 14th. Monday was spent clearing out Evan's apartment and loading a Uhaul for temporary storage in our garage. That Friday Jim, Dotti, Brent, Natalie, Evan and Kristen all took off for a week of sailing in the Abacos (Bahamas). We had a nice relaxing trip although it was a bit hot. Pictures will be posted later. Evan and Kristen immediately returned to Chicago the day after we returned and the following day Evan left for NJ to begin training for his new job. He'll move into his apartment in Chicago in July and we'll forward his address etc when we have all of the particulars. April 06 - Evan accepted a job as a corporate recruiter for Keyence. Keyence makes optical sensors for factory automation and he will be recruiting new sales people as they expand expand their sales force to support their 30% growth rate. Keyence is a Japanese firm with US headquarters in New Jersey. Evan will be working out of their Chicago office. He will be traveling quite a bit to do campus recruiting throughout the year. You can learn more at www.keyence.com . Jim finished his 2nd week of the Latin America Tour which took him from Venezuela to Argentina and a side trip to Uruguay. See the photo album. Didn't spend too much time in Buenos Aires but basically it is a big city. Some nice architecture and we did go to a Tango show which was pretty neat. Friday turned out to be a day off due to some cancellations so we took a ferry to Colonia, Uruguay. Colonia is a small town founded by the Portuguese to smuggle goods into Buenos Aires. Fun little town and we had a really relaxing lunch overlooking the water. We then returned on the ferry to be picked up by a car with our luggage loaded and whisked to the airport which where we arrived just in time to return home. March 06 - March took Dotti and Jim to Italy. It was part business trip for Jim with meetings in Venice for 3 days. We hooked up with another couple for a wonderful week in Tuscany with stops in Florence and Pisa along with some smaller medieval towns in between. You'll find more info on this in the News and Photo Album. At the end of the month Jim left for a two week business trip to Mexico, Venzuela, and Argentina. Jim's Latin America Tour - March/April 06 Italy March 06 After the meetings we jumped on a train to Florence Wednesday afternoon. Had a neat hotel with a wonderful proprietor that pointed us to a nice restaurant for dinner. We spent the next day doing the touristy things in Florence like seeing David, climbing the Cathedral dome etc. In the afternoon we picked up our car and were off for the countryside of Tuscany. We drove south and stopped in a neat little town of Monteriggioni for lunch then on to Volterra. We stayed in a converted convent but you would hardly know it. The town was delightful. Unfortunately Jim was sick and skipped dinner that night. After Volterra we drove to Castello di Bossi. It turns out that it was a country house at a vineyard. We had a 3 bedroom apartment there along with a kitchen. We drove about 10km to Guistrigona for dinner. The town was very small. About 5 minutes you walked in one gate and out the other. We arrived early and sat in a small snack shop unit the single restaurant in town opened at 7:30pm. We discovered that the restaurant had just re-opened 3 days before and the owners were quite product to be running their own place after working in other establishments. As the early birds we got quite a lesson in wines from the wine steward and had a delicious meal. The next morning it was off to Siena. It was so close we decided we needed to stop by and had lunch on the square. Siena is quite large with a nice cathedral but we enjoyed the smaller towns more. We left Siena for the walled town of San Gimignano. It has several towers and is a bit of a tourist trap but we were there off season and it wasn't bad at all. We walked around town and watched some cats get showed out of somone's window and had dinner at a small restaurant that evening. Trying to fit as much in as we could we left early before they had the market setup in the square and headed for Lucca. Unfortunately it was Sunday and there really wasn't much going on in Lucca when we were there but we walked around the town and then headed out for Pisa. Pisa was our
last stop. We stayed in a 14th century hotel right on the river. It was a short
walk to the tower and on the way they had a antique market in full swing. We
spent the afternoon doing the tower, cathedral etc.
Then one last Italian dinner and we were on our way home. January 06 - Unseasonably warm for the tundra state but we'll take it. Wrapped up the month with a Chinese New Year celebration at Brent and Natalie's place. December 05 - Brent and Natalie are now a well established married couple and you can still view all of the wedding photos on Brent's website. Brent finally rewarded himself with a new car now that the major wedding stuff is behind them. No longer does he need to scrape the ice off his clothes when he gets to work after a ride in the very drafty Jeep. Natalie had a couple of major trips to China. Brent joined her for a week during the last one, spending his time wondering around Hong Kong while Natalie negotiated with Christmas tree vendors in August. Evan is wrapping up his undergraduate career at the University of Wisconsin with only one semester left to go (yea!). A degree in psychology appears in the picture. He has been working part-time as a human resources assistant for Aramark and is interviewing for jobs in H.R. It appears where he will seek work will depend on where Kristen ends up going to law school. Dot has been kept busy with her job within United Healthcare's NBR unit. She is now an official six-sigma black belt. Not sure what that really means but it sure helps keep Jim in line. Jim continues his world travels with Rosemount (now officially called Emerson Process Management). A trip to St. Petersburg in June for a meeting with a couple of days vacation provided some wonderful experiences including art at the Hermitage museum. July took him to Phuket, Thailand, the scene of the tsunami last December. It's largely rebuilt and ready to go. Singapore and Malaysia in November. And of course the bunch of domestic travels as well. Yogi is.....well Yogi. Most will say he is calmer than he was a year ago but still a very demanding pooch. November 05 Just before Thanksgiving we got away one more time to visit Mom/Jane/Gammy for a couple of days before running back to Minneapolis to have Turkey Day at Brent's house with Evan (and Yogi and Toby of course). March 05 January 2005 December 04 Update: Jim spent much of the past year traveling for work visiting Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lampur, Hannover, Mannheim, not to mention Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and various other domestic ports of call. The new year will take Jim to Malaga and Phuket to start with. Dot managed to get us a mooring on Lake Waconia about 20 miles west. So the summer had us sailing one or two days each week once the early summer rains stopped. It was great not to have to rig and launch the boat every time you wanted to use it. Dot continues to work for United Healthcare but we're not sure for how long. Her unit is being disbanded so she is scouting for other opportunities within UHC and outside as well. Brent has been on his own for over a year now so I guess we're getting used to it. He and Natalie have turned out to be great entertainers. They hosted both Thanksgiving Dinner for both sets of families and Christmas Eve dinner for the Cobb clan. Delicious food and a great time. They have a dog named Toby and were also briefly foster parents for a second beagle. Evan will be returning to the University of Wisconsin in Madison after the break to finish up is junior year. He has decided to major in Psychology taking after his Mom. No one is sure how he will parlay that into employment but we'll have to see. He has a steady girl named Kristen who will be joining us for our traditional New Year's Eve fondue event. December 03 - Jim continued his travels with a visit to Montreal and Toronto followed by a quick trip to Beijing just before Christmas week. November 03 - Dot and Jim went to Madison for parents weekend. We had a nice visit and met a lot of the young men at the fraternity and many of their parents. They seem to be a very nice bunch. Jim spent much of the month traveling to train the Rosemount saleforce in the US with stops in Myrtle Beach, New Orleans, Cleveland, Phoenix and Costa Mesa. Gammy visited for Thanksgiving and we went to Brent's new digs for a nice brunch with the McFee's, Natalie's Uncle's family and Natalie of course. October 03 - Brent and Natalie are now officially engaged. No date has been sent but its looking like a year or so out. Brent was presented with a ball and chain at his department meeting at work. Brent moved into his house on October 17th. The house is really nice and they already pretty well settled in. August 03 - We all enjoyed another fantastic week in the San Juan Islands this year. Although we did stop some places where we had been before. This year's highlight was sailing to Victoria, BC. It just happened to be a holiday there and the harbor was filled with activity. Vendors, jugglers and various other street performers. We were grilled by customs both in Canada and coming back into the US because we had two non-family members on-board, Natalie and Mike Duffy. Evan departed for Madison late in the month. He is staying in the frat house this year. July 03 - Brent's house is really coming along now. It is all enclosed with the plumbing and electrical work beginning. He has his dry-wall inspection on Monday August 11th and the house should be done 60 days after that. Evan managed to convert his part time job to full-time. He now does mortgage investigations verifying social security numbers, employment, etc. Dot got a promotion within United Heathcare but in a different department. You'll have to ask her what she actually does because I haven't figured it out yet. Jun 03 - Evan is home and working part-time for Wells Fargo processing loan applications. Full time work is hard to come by this summer so he's glad to have this bit. He is also working Bible School in the mornings to fill in the time a bit. Brent is monitoring progress on his house which seems to be a bit slow at the moment. He's still hoping for a Sept move-in date but won't know until probably August. Mar 03 - Brent put money down on a brand new house. It's expected to be completed in about six months, just in time to hunker down for next winter. Evan joined Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity as was elected Pledge Class President. Jan 11-14 - Jim, Dot, Brent & Evan all flew to Salt Lake City for a few days of skiing. This was our first experience in Utah and we had a grand time. They could have used a little more snow but it was still a great time. The weather was quite warm with highs in the 30s and 40s each day. Like spring skiing. Evan stayed two extra days with a friend who has a time share deal in Deer Valley. He was able to go a few places that Dot and I would never venture when he was on his own. DEC - Brent practices his home owning skills on our house by removing and replacing some water damaged wallboard. He works fast! We may not let him move out.... Nov 16th - Yogi joins the family Sept 6th - Dot's now just as old as I am. July 25th - Picnic @ Pam's with Britt and Katie July 14th - Evan leaves for Cabrini Green in Chicago on a mission trip to paint senior citizens' apartments. July 13th - Finally got around to celebrating Brent's graduation. Dinner @ Lord Fletcher's and a toast at home July 6th - Dot get's a new toy! A recumbent bike...she REALLY likes it! May 31st - Brent - A new life begins..... Hi Ho Hi Ho it's off to work we go! May 2002 - Evan receives the Semper Fidelis Award for Music Excellence presented by the US Marine Corp. May 2002 - Evan wins a scholarship from Emerson, the Kopp family and USBank. Brent accepts a job with Lund's Food Holdings in their IT department starting on June 3rd. Graduation party scheduled for June 1st. April 2002 - Evan seems to be leaning toward going to the University of Wisconsin next year. Evan was selected as the Student Achiever of the Week by the Bloomington SunCurrent newspaper. He was also honored as one of the top100 Senior Student Achievers in Bloomington at a banquet hosted by the paper and other community organizations. He was honored in the Leadership category.
March 2002 - Brent spent the week in Cancun recuperating from the first half of spring term. Evan was accepted at Villanova but is still waiting to hear from Michigan and Northwestern before making a decision. Evan was honored as one of the top 100 senior achievers from Bloomington at a banquet and got his name in the paper as the student of the week. March 2002 - Dot and Evan join Jim on a business trip to Aspen. Evan gets a NASTAR gold medal. Sunny skies for 3 days, snow for the one day Jim gets to ski and then a foot of new snow on the day of departure. Dot and Evan couldn't resist so they hit the new powder while Jim tried to figure out how they were ever going to get home. Ended up taking a bus for 2.5 hours to Grand Junction where Northwest had a plane to take us home. February 2002 - Jim goes on his first ever business trip to China, visiting Guangzhou, Konming, Beijing, and Shanghai before heading for Singapore and home. January, 2002 - Evan received acceptance letters from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin. Letters won't be received from Northwestern, Michigan or Villanova until mid April. Until then we sit and wait. December 21, 2001 - Brent and Thomas arrived home from Madison on Wednesday night Dec 19th. Brent immediately went back to work at Lund's the next day. Thomas spends his time playing "Bond" (Nintendo), playing pool, watching all 99 cable channels until the wee hours and sleeping late. A nice luxury for a college student. Evan leaves for Hawaii on Dec 27th with the Jefferson H.S. Marching Band. They have a few concert engagements but mostly I think they will be playing on the beach. Thomas will be leaving us on Dec 29th for Ohio where he is hooking up with some other students from Jena. He thinks he then will continue on east to visit other acquaintances in the Philadelphia area. December 7, 2001 - Evan's college applications are starting to take shape. He is applying to one or more of the following: Villanova, Univ. of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, Northwestern, and Univ. of Michigan. You need to check on a daily basis to what is actually happening. November 20, 2001 - Jim & Dotti's 25th Anniversary. Jim was in Canada on business and Dot went to Evan's band banquet. Other than that quite an anniversary event. Judy and Aaron also arrived that evening. We finally got around to going out for a nice romantic dinner on December 2nd. August 30, 2001 - Brent moves back to Madison to buy books and get ready for the semester. August 21, 2001 - Evan is accepted into the Mentor Connection program. He will be spending 50% of his time during his senior year working on stem cell research with Dr. Catherine Verfaillie head of the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota. August 18, 2001 - Brent's stuff gets
moved back to Madison. He's not staying but just getting the apartment set up.
It also gives us a chance to get Thomas some furniture for his room. August 14, 2001 - Evan begins marching band practice with their daily practices from 6 to 10pm each evening until school begins after Labor Day. August 3, 2001 - The Cobb's take a vacation sailing in the San Juan and Gulf Islands of the Puget Sound. July 15, 2001 - Evan goes to Cabrini Green in Chicago with a church work party to spend a week painting and cleaning up for people unable to do it themselves. June 20, 2001: Evan tours London, Paris in conjunction with the Taize pilgrimage with St. Stephen's Church. Returning home on July 4th. March 2001: Evan tours Japan with the Jefferson High School Concert Band March 29 through April 5 Jan 2001: Brent declares his major in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Jan 2001: Evan is selected for the National Honor Society! Induction ceremony on Feb 15, 2001 @ 7pm.
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