Dog blog update

Like I said before, I have no intention of making this a dog blog. But I figured there was no harm in adding a few updates!

Our dog is growing up quickly - she's getting much bigger, and behaving much better. We can now (finally!) sleep through the night without having to get up and go down five flights of stairs to let her outside, and we can actually take her to restaurants without having her get restless or pee on the floor. Basically, she's starting to act more like a dog than a puppy... making her much easier to be around!

Here are a few recent photos:

Rocket chewing on her favorite bone

Rocket getting mauled by other puppies at the kennel when we went to Spain

Rocket laying in her favorite bed

A random picture of Fishstick making a scary face - just thought I'd throw this one in too!

- Krista

Spain: Sevilla, Malaga, Torremolinos

Since it might be a while until Brian gets another month off (ok, this may never happen again), we decided to make the most of it and get out of town. We decided to go to the South of Spain, since Brian had never been there and what we both wanted was a beach vacation.

We flew into Sevilla, a moderately big, interesting city Southwest of Madrid. We had read that the temperature was going to hover around 100 degrees when we were there, so we made sure to get a hotel with a pool and decided to stay only one night.

Sevilla was great, and we swam, walked around the city and had some lovely vegetarian tapas (I've always been in love with Spain, aside from their food - they put tuna or ham on anything that might otherwise be vegetarian). The only bad thing was that I got my wallet stolen! I was pretty bummed about it, since I had absolutely everything in there - my U.S. driver's license, Dutch ID card, library card, credit cards (we canceled these before the thief got to them), etc. But it could have been much worse, and I was incredibly greatful to have my passport still, since going to the U.S. embassy during a trip is never a fun thing.

After Sevilla we took a train down to the city of Málaga, a beach town that relatively few Americans visit but is well known by British and German holiday-ers. We didn't feel like traveling around a lot, so we booked the hotel for four nights and just decided to do a few day trips to keep ourselves busy.

We had a really fun, relaxing time - exactly what we needed. We went to the beach a lot, and even made it to the nearby waterpark, Aquapark, which was a blast (wave pool, intertubes, slides - just like when I was a kid!). We took a few day trips to the nearby town Torremolinos, which was much bigger and nicer than I expected, and had a great beach.

By the end of the trip we were ready to come home - which is always a good thing - and it was nice to see the animals and the familiar surroundings. But we hope to travel again soon!

Here are a few highlights from the trip:

Brian eating chips and salsa on the beach in Torremolinos

The view from the roof of our hotel in Málaga

Me being squished in an intertube at Aqualand

Brian making an A for Aqualand while wearing the dorky hat we got for free

Me hanging out at Aqualand

- Krista

A stream of warm impermanence

I hope everyone is doing well back in the states with all the "crisis", "swine flu" and "re-structuring" going around right now.

Being nervous about having a job really makes you take stock, and I realized how lucky I have been not only in work, but in everything. Last June to this June has truly been the craziest, best, most stressful, incredible and unbelievable 12 months of my life.

We have experienced planning and having a huge wedding, moving across the world, 2 floods that destroyed the floor of our condo while it was on the market (one discovered while we were on our honeymoon, the other in the middle of escrow!!!!), Selling our cars, finally selling our condo, seeing more countries than we ever imagined we would, fighting the insurance company to cover the flood damage, getting a puppy and now a job change, and they have all turned out well. I said to myself, if you can just get through this layoff thing OK, then there will be nothing left that can happen. Let's hope I don't stand corrected too soon... ;)

I look at this month off as a reward for Krista and I surviving the year, and I plan on making the most of it.

- Brian

The summer of Brian

Today was my last day at Nike. For those of you who don't know what I did there, I was an art-director and graphic designer creating branding, marketing and communication for the Nike Sportswear and Nike Football brands in Europe, The Middle East and Africa. Nike has a small internal design firm in the EMEA Headquarters and I worked there for the past year and at Nike Headquarters for four years before that on Nike Basketball.

My job was mainly creating branding and communication around Nike products, and doing the packaging and promotion of them in partner retail stores. I also did strategic direction work for the brands, planning concepts and creating design language for upcoming promotions. In addition there has recently been a lot of work creating destination retail and coming up with ad campaigns. It has been really great there, but I am ready for a new challenge after working in the athletic industry for the past seven years.

I was not looking for a job at all when Nike announced a re-structuring a couple of months ago and a 5% job cut along with it. Krista and I talked a lot about what we wanted and decided that it was too early for us to move back to the US, and that if I did get laid off, it would be wonderful to have a back up job possibility so that we could stay.

When the Nike CEO announced that the company would no longer operate a headquarters in Europe, but a regional office instead, I kicked my search into high gear and started working with a headhunting team.

I was very lucky to quickly find a great position with Tommy Hilfiger at their Global headquarters here in Amsterdam. I will be able to bike 10 minutes to work now rather than an hour train ride to the suburbs. That's 2 hours more a day that I can enjoy being here with Krista, Fishstick, Rocket and our friends. I will be doing a very similar role at a higher level in my new job, but focusing much more on photographic art direction and advertising. Tommy has changed a lot since I was in high school and Notorious BIG was rapping about them, but see for yourself:

http://europe.tommy.com/#/collections/mens/sportswear

It ended up that I would have kept my job at Nike, but the search made me realize that I was ready for something new, and luckily this is a great opportunity, especially in these hard economic times.

The way everything turned out, I have the whole month of June off to have fun before I start the new job July 1st. I can't say I am not excited.

It was a hard decision, but I am sure it is the right one. Everyone who leaves Nike writes an email to all of their colleagues and says goodbye, but I swore to myself I would avoid the cliches when I left. So rather than wax about how much I would miss everyone, I made a list of cool stuff I got to do since I started back in April of 2004. I thought I could share it with you, see below if you are interested.

- Brian

____________________________________

The Coolest Things I Got To Do At Nike
By Brian Schmitt

*not in any particular order, and probably incomplete*

__________________________________________

Meet the ³Redeem Team² Olympic Basketball squad

Design a collection of shoes

Stay in really nice hotels

Make a cartoon about shoe monsters

Meet LeBron James

Get taken to design school by Michael Spoljaric

Make Nike Posters

Sell a marketing plan to Phil Knight with my college roommate

Take an inspiration trip to Canada with the Basketball group

Have lunch in the design library

Work on the athlete pitch for Kevin Durant

Go on photo-shoots with famous people

Make Nike logos

Travel all over the world

Design signature shoeboxes for LeBron James

Tell people I was a Nike Designer

Work and live in Europe

Meet Michael Doherty and significantly lowered my Bacon number

Make Nike Ads

Work on the Doernbecher charity project

Go to lake Tahoe and play golf with college basketball coaches

Make lots of bad jokes to a captive audience

Move to Amsterdam

Go to Berlin with all of Brand Design EMEA

Have dinner with Tinker Hatfield

Collect way too many shoes

Design Nike Stuff for 2 Olympics and 2 World Cups

Have a driver waiting for me at the airport with my name on a sign

Think up ideas for a living

__________________________________________

It¹s been an amazing 5 years!
Goodbye and thanks for the memories.

Cheers,

Brian

Krista's parents visit: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Before my parents had to go back to their busy lives in the U.S., they took a few days to hang out in Amsterdam with us. It was really nice to get to show them a little bit about our lifestyle and a few of our favorite places in town, and it felt incredibly relaxing after the hustle and bustle of Venice. And since the days they were here happened to be Dutch holidays, Brian got to hang out with us too.

While they were here, we took them around town, showed them a few of our favorite cafes and hangouts, went for a bike ride, and made them a few homecooked meals (we were all a bit sick of eating out constantly after our travels). But the best thing we did by far was rent a boat.

Brian and I had never rented a boat here before, but it turned out to be the easiest thing ever. We took it out for about two hours, brought a bottle of wine and snacks, and toured the city's canals. It was really fun, and a great way to spend an afternoon. I think we will be renting boats all summer long!

A few pictures of the boat ride below:

Mom and I

Brian steering the boat before my Dad took over


Prost!

See the rest of our photos here.

We will miss you Mom and Dad - thank you so much for coming, I had a wonderful time with you and hope you come back soon!

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: Venice, Italy

After Florence, we took the train to Venice for our last stop in Italy. We had a bit of an adventure getting there (we missed our first train, and got a lot of exercise running with our bags), but eventually made it.

The city was beautiful, although the canals weren't quite as amazing to me since I live in Amsterdam where there are also tons of canals (Amsterdam is sometimes described as "the Venice of the North"). But there is definitely a different feel to Venice than where I live, and you can tell that when the town was in its prime it must have been absolutely incredible.

We had a good time, and made the most of our two days there - we toured the palace, listened to dueling orchestras in St. Mark's square while eating amazing gelato, took a canal boat ride, and of course walked around and got plenty lost (this is actually recommended by Rick Steves, our lifelong travel guide).

The city was packed with tourists, and you could barely tell who lived there, but Venice is interesting because it has been a tourist town for over 400 years, so the crowds of spectators we encountered were nothing new. But there were funny little rules that made me glad that I live in Amsterdam instead of Venice - for example, picknicking is illegal in the city, and you are not allowed to sit in St. Mark's square, the main town gathering. Aside from that, the buildings are decaying and the city may not be there in the coming years... yes, I am glad I live in Amsterdam.

Here are a few pictures from the visit:

My mom and I on the Rialto Bridge

A view of the famous bridge from the water

St. Mark's square

My Dad looking out at the water

A view of the water from the bridge

Look at the rest of the pictures here.

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: Florence, Italy

After Siena we stopped in Florence for a night on our way to Venice. It was a really interesting city and I definitely could have stayed longer.

There is so much history there, I think I was a little overwhelmed since we were staying such a short time. And since my favorite thing to do when I travel is walk around the city until my feet hurt and I feel like I've gotten a flavor of the culture, that's pretty much what I did. But next time I definitely want to go in some of the interesting historical places - especially the science museum to learn about Galileo!

Apparently I forgot to take any pictures of Florence... this one of the market will have to do until I can convince my Mom to send me some of hers:


See photos from the rest of the trip here.

- Krista