Leaving The US for China...

Chicago's O'Hare Airport: last stop en route to Shanghai.

A Drive Through The Virginia Countryside

Sunday morning we took to Northern Virginia's country roads to visit good SA friends. The Rosslee's lives at the foot of the mountains, close the border with Maryland and West Virginia.
Spring is in the air and it was a gorgeous drive through horse and farm country.

Shenandoah - Memorial Day Weekend

Enjoying the Shenandoah Park- beautiful day for a hike!

Ecuador July 2010

Ecuador July 2010, a set on Flickr.

To 2011...

A prosperous and blessed New Year to all our friends.
The Bouwers

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Economic Recovery Slows with Weak Job Creation in June

The economic forecasts are becoming less optimistic as the $787 billion federal stimulus measure is losing the artificial momentum it created in 2009. Economists are predicting darker days lies ahead. The artificial boost to the unemployment rate (currently at 9.5% - boosted as nearly 400,000 Census workers were counted as "employed") dropped when more than 200,000 temporary federal Census workers completed their contracts. Here's a good report from the New York Times.

Although the stimulus kick-started the US economy back into action at a crucial time, the White House is again calling for more spending. I'm no economist, but surely continuing to spend money you don't have will come back to bite you in the behind. After Greece went bankrupt recently European leaders have announced a conservative fiscal policy, getting their own budgets in order and cutting back on spending. It makes sense - if I incur debt I won't be dining out for a while. I'll be reckless if I keep using the credit card. Simple.

Here's sincerely hoping the the forecasts are wrong and the economy picks up in the Fall.