I'm no geologist but, I'm guessing glacial. The higher peaks are very sculptured. Then the occasional glacial debris blocks off the valley to form a lake. One high valley we really like has 11 lakes. Each one stepping down from the last. It makes for some spectacular waterfalls in places. When we were there in 2005 the snow pack had been more than usual, then we hit a very warm week (for that elevation, 10,000+ feet) and the river was very high with melt water. In this 2nd photo if you look closely you can see my youngest son in the upper left of the picture. The roar from the falls is unbelieveable. Ron

Certainly many tests are just bogus and BS, but we can't change that. People take tests everywhere in the world, Denmark, Kenya, Lithuania etc. And tests don't end with school. Of course there are many teaching strategies but that's not what you were talking about but only about testing. I never said anything about teaching strategies and don't recall praising American education at all. Doing well on tests takes more than just paying attention, it takes ability to summarize and find the most important information and eliminate and think logically and time oneself, it involves a lot. Some people do better than others. paying attention is important, but it is only one variable. By this logic everyone who is able to pay attention would have 2400 out of 2400 on SAT. Successful test taking involves more than that. As about Denmark or other European countries... high school students take enormous number of tests including comprehensive high school exit exam. American does have the gold standard at all, most European universities do not even accept American high school graduates because unfortunately US level of secondary ed is not up to the standard. So education in Europe is very rigorous and involves extensive testing at every level. I don't think your comparison is that relevant. Also in Europe students who do poorly are usually tracked rather early on and are pretty much on vocation path early on. They are not required or forced to compete with others since they are tracked as not college material. So rather than forcing struggling student to take tests that he/she cannot manage, they are provided with different type of education, more of a vocational type. And how are they tracked? primarily through comprehensive testing. So your examples of European education are not very accurate. saying all that the US provides by far the best services for people with special needs, no where in the world people with special need have that many rights and get that many accommodations. US is the place to be for people with disabilities. This is absolutely great!!! i think US does have gold standard in that field. Other than that not so much... Practice notes with me won't help. I have severe case (although not as bad as my mother's), i don't even recognize people's voices. I accepted that it is something I lack. I would never consider career in music. It would be stupid of me.

Marthaelena, can you help give me a more specific recommendation on what might look good? Because I started out thinking I could change materials and just couldn't hit on an idea that would work. Kitchen will be warm contemporary with medium stained shaker cabinets on cherry; dark granite or soapstone, and oak hardwood floors. The kitchen is at one end of the mudroom, and at the other is the back hall and then the laundry. Laundry floor is tile that relates to the kitchen backsplash but basic white slab melamine cabinetry. So I feel like a third look in between might be too much. I can see keeping the same color and switching from shaker to slab in the office/mudroom area, for example, but I have a harder time picturing switching to a different wood tone. Maybe something like this - maybe I paint my island and then carry that color into the mudroom? I am one of those people who cannot figure out how to put things together visually. I know what I like and what I don't when it is done, but I have a very hard time visualizing what will work and what won't. mnhockeymom, love your lockers. Who did yours - cabinet company or finish carpenter? I want something very similar with the bottom portion being deeper than the top, and then I'll have cabs with doors over the top. At the end of the run I'll have my spare refrigerator. We also have one locker with a door that is dedicated to shoes as we have many, many shoes and they all live in the mudroom. We take off our shoes as soon as we come inside so the kids don't have any shoes upstairs at all. DH and I have some but most are mudroom-based. Anita

Are the beams solely decorative? Just removing them patching and repainting is going to cost a fair bit. On the distance between the peninsula and the cabinets I would check that distance again because it is really important not to have a bottleneck. If the fridge gets moved over to that area-which would make sense if you move the sink to the peninsula you have to be careful about how deep the fridge is and how much space it really needs behind it. It looks like you could easily create a small corridor with normal mud room bench, shoe and hanging area, with some open shelving for landing smaller items there (and a corridor would probably be preferable for the person using the bathroom anyway, it would feel more private). On the bi-fold pantry doors, does the interior pantry go all the way up to the ceiling? I had a situation where the top of the doors were 18" lower than the interior ceiling which went all the way to the normal ceiling height and every time I used the top shelf I cracked my head on the door frame. I ended up removing the entire structure so that it was just open and then putting normal cabinets which worked much better. To maximize your prep area you would do as Sena has drawn and put the sink on the peninsula the prep area would be under the window and the stove would be on the far wall. But I would read about that sink on the peninsula a lot of people hated it because they felt it splashed too much but I thought it was a great idea, particularly if you could have something similar to the galley sink (I say "similar" because it is just needlessly pricey for a large sink with over the sink cutting boards and racks). I am not sure I like Sena's idea about the table being crammed against the peninsula. I'm not sure what purpose that serves it seems like you have enough space there for a table and chairs.