The Yucatán Room is here!

Hello Friends,

After weeks of remodeling, we added a new room in March of this year in what was once the conference room here at MonteBello B&B Inn. It is the Yucatán Room. It features the vibrant colors of the tropics in it's décor. Since it is on the third floor, it receives a lot of light from its five windows, which makes the colors of the room stand out. The daylight makes it seem as if you were on the beach in the bright sunlight. If you are traveling our way, please stop by and take your well-deserved rest in this little slice of "sun, sand and ocean".

Update: A note from the designer of this blog

Hello Friends,

Since I last posted a note, I have succeeded in raising the money to pay for the textile design software to design textiles for the weavers of the cooperative, SiD Nepal, based in Kathmandu, Nepal. I am now using that software to design texiles for them. It is a good feeling to be able to help them out and I am looking forward to designing some creative items in the future.

A note from the designer of this blog

Dhaka weaving of the Limbu and Rai

The owner of MonteBello B&B Inn has graciously let me put a notice here about a project that I'm working on. My name is Heidi Reyes and I am raising money to buy textile design software to design textiles for women weavers of the Limbu and Rai tribes of Nepal who have formed a weaving cooperative called SiD Nepal, Society for Indigenous Development Nepal. I am collecting dontations for the software. This is a personal project, so donations are not tax deductible. Any contributions to this project would be greatly appreciated. If anyone has any questions about the project or wants to donate, I can be reached by calling MonteBello B&B Inn or at this email. If anyone wants to contact SiD Nepal directly, the link to their brochure is here.

The Story County Trail

On November 2, 2008, the Iowa Bed and Breakfast Guild Fall Conference had a fantastic time following the "Story County Trail". The trail began at the Iowa House with a tour and piping hot cider. The next stop was Gilbert where they visited the Left Bank Studio and enjoyed creating artwork. The third stop was the De Moss Pumpkin Farm where they purchased fall produce and goodies. The fourth stop was Prairie Moon Winery where they tasted superb Iowa wine. The fifth and last stop was MonteBello B&B Inn where they had delectable soups at a potluck and entertaining games. Fun was had by one and all!

The Festival Latino del Maíz was a success!

On Sunday, September 14, we had our Festival Latino del Maíz. It was a great success! We introduced our new nonprofit organization, Latino Cultural Institute of the Midwest (LaCIM). The LaCIM website is now operational and we will be adding to it in the near future. Also, we announced that in the coming year we will have a music competition that will feature Latino folk music and operatic music. The idea is to have auditions to choose singers who can sing opera as well as Spanish language songs. These singers will be given awards and invited to come and give concerts and presentations in community schools. We look forward to seeing how the competition develops.

Our cultural institute, Latino Cultural Instute of the Midwest (LaCIM), is now a nonprofit

Hello Friends,

We have been working for many months toward establishing our nonprofit cultural institute the Latino Cultural Institute of the Midwest (LaCIM) and now, as of this month, we have been granted tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status. It has taken a lot of planning but we have finally come to the point where we can begin fulfilling our vision of creating opportunities for people to discover and learn about Latino culture. We have big plans in the works and we expect that they will go ahead at a more rapid pace now.

We know that it will take a lot of hard work to implement our plans. We will be looking for people to help us do just that. In the near future, we will be putting out a call for those who are interested to come help us bring our plans to fruition.

In addition, we have been hard at work on a website for LaCIM. We will continue working on it and we expect to have it ready in the very near future. We will let people know when it is ready by announcing it here.

More links added

Hello Friends,

I have just added some more links to the blog. The links are for photos (Flickr) and video (YouTube) of MonteBello B&B Inn. Please enjoy!