New Photos Posted!

Take a look at the right side margin and you'll notice a slideshow of photos taken while Leslie and I were in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. We are just back and my first priority was to get those photos loaded up. Done!

Now on to the journal I kept while away. I will post these as I get them edited and embed static photos that go along with the content of the blog entry. So stay tuned. I have some great stories to share of this fantastic trip, filled with adventures all over the country, where we made new friends, both Ecuadorian and others from all over the world and saw some amazing things.

Our main purpose for being in Ecuador was for Leslie to be on the faculty of the 7th Annual Choral Music Symposium in Quito. She was invited to teach students and teachers at the symposium about her method of teaching conducting and how she incorporates that into her choral rehearsals at Western Washington University here in Bellingham, Washington. I won't be going into much detail about that since that is far from my area of expertise. However, I will share our plentiful and colorful experiences while in that country for three weeks.

So, take a look at the photos for now and in the days ahead stop back by and read my thoughts about our time in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. You can subscribe to this blog over there on the right margin as well if you'd like to be notified when the next blog entry is posted. I write and share my thoughts on food, travel, photography, boating, and life in general. I'd also welcome your comments or rebuttal!

By the way, if you'd like to see the photos in a larger format, just double click on the slideshow and it should open up to a size that makes the experience more fun. I'll warn you, there are about 400 photos and that is after editing heavily! I just couldn't delete anymore. So quit if you get bored or enjoy the show!

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Coming Home!

This is a bass ackwards way of writing about our adventures in Ecuador, but we are packed and ready to fly home from Quito after nearly 3 weeks. I have had no access to a computer other than the Nook Color we took along which turned out to be pretty worthless when it came to accessing the web. I was able to use it to keep my journal and we took dozens of great photos so I will be reporting on the trip beginning when we arrive home on August 4th. The reports will be transcribed, edited as needed, then posted chronologically.

As a preview, you should know that the trip was fabulous. We spent 1 1/2 weeks in Quito initially while Leslie taught at the International Choral Music Festival here. She taught her daily classes (4 hours a day) in Spanish! Then we always spent the rest of the day with new friends and students where it was necessary for her to speak Spanish as well. My Spanish even improved out of necessity, but it was pretty intense!

Part of these days were also spent traveling to the outskirts of Quito, even several hours out to visit small towns, sometimes as part of the entourage on mini choir tours and sometimes just being tourists. We traveled to Ambato where we ate Chuy or guinea pig. We visited Midel del Mundo, where we stood on the equator. We traveled with a former student of Leslie´s to Mindo, where we took a harrowing ride hundreds of feet over the canopy of a rainforest, saw colorful butterflies, orchids of every color and size, and dozens of hummingbirds zipping about feeding. On our bus ride to get there we watched, heart warmed as her student patiently sat with a local teenager, who had hopped on the bus to sell candy to make a few pennies. She read, at his request, the Bible because he didn't know how to read.

The next 5 days were spent cruising through the Galapagos Islands. This segment of the trip is worth reading about if you have any notion of going there. We had snorkeling adventures where we had up close and personal encounters with sea lions, sea turtles, fish of every size and color, sea iguanas and cormorants diving for food, Blue Footed Boobies sat on their nests. Fantastic! Then we returned to Quito for another 3 days before our departure home.

I hope you will join me as I try and retell our amazing adventures here in Ecuador. See you soon!

Preparations

After a couple of last minute shopping runs for items we are told are must-haves when in the Galapagos, a new REI hat (Pictured on the left. Geeky but functional!) with +50 sun-block protection and these little stringy contraptions that hold your glasses on your face in case they fall off when around the water, we are packed and ready to head out on our adventure to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

This is a copy of a poster for the opening night concert at the Choral Festival in which Leslie will be teaching.

We each have a small suitcase and large carry-ons, mine with camera gear and important papers for the trip and hers with all the important papers and gizmos she needs to teach her classes for the next week and a half. It was difficult to pack for this trip as we need the more formal wear to be in a classroom and attend concerts in the evening, but also the light weight, very informal gear for hiking and swimming in the Islands.

Also, the higher elevation of Quito (9,000+ feet) makes is a cooler climate necessitating warmer clothes versus the sea-level, near the equator warmer climate of the Galapagos. So, we layer in Quito, take a couple of nicer outfits and the rest of the clothes for the warmer days when we are out and about in Quito and in the islands. I think we have it figured out, but, hey, if we need anything. they have stores in Ecuador!

Our plane departs Seattle at about 10 pm and stops in Miami on our way to Quito (oh lord, a red-eye!). It is going to be a long journey. Sadly it will be in economy class and we all know what that feels like--can you say, "moooooooo!"

More later as time permits!

Off to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands

Beginning this Friday, I will be starting a series on our travels to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Watch for updates on our adventures--travel and food experiences, people we meet and photos of our journey.

Most of our time in Ecuador will be spent in and around Quito with short excursions to outlying attractions. We will fly to the Galapagos Islands and board a cruise ship that will take us around the islands and on-shore excursions for 5 days.

I hope you will join me as I share my thoughts on our grand adventure to another South American destination.

A Day in the Garden!

After a year of ignoring our beautiful back garden, we, that is up until today mostly my wife, have begun the slow and steady process of ridding the beds of two year's growth of weeds and self-propagating plants and trees. We are under the gun a bit since we have hired an outfit to come in with, get this, 36 yards of bark to cover the beds. For those who may not know just how much that is, it is the amount that would fill a cube that is one yard wide, tall and deep. It will be quite a mountain of bark when it is dropped inn our driveway!

This stuff is supposed to dress up the beds, hold down weed growth and cut down on the amount of watering needed. So, the nasty stuff growing in the beds has to be gone before it makes sense for them to lay down the bark.

We also have the looming deadline of my retirement party for B'ham friends and family next week. Since there is the likelihood that the party will pour out into the garden, it should really look its best.

Yet to do:

• Get the 3 fountains up and running.
• Power wash the upper patio and lower decks.
• Plant up pots with annuals for color.
• Plant veggies in raised beds.
  
• Hanging baskets for Secret Garden entrance.
• Re-mount the bird house that fell when a section of fence went over last winter.
• Set up all irrigation systems.
• Set the front garden irrigation system.
• Sort the contents of the barn and get it organized.
• Cut down the cloches to fit the Secret Garden raised beds.
• Round-Up weeds and ivy poking through from neighbor's yards.
• Trim branches of trees hanging too low making mowing difficult.
• Fix spinning art in upper raised bed.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure my wife will add to the list but that's pretty good for now.

I must say, the yard is looking a lot better. The buttercups are pretty much gone or as gone as buttercups can ever be. The beds have been taken back from the wild and returned to civilization. A second truck load of weeds, branches and lawn has been accumulated and is ready to take down to the green dump.

Best of all, my wife said to me today that we have created something beautiful here and she is right. When I think back at what the back garden looked like when we moved into this house 16 years ago and consider it now, it is something to be proud of. Now that I am retired and have more time to call my own, I have an opportunity to make it even more beautiful and to better maintain what we already have. Hmmmm, maybe I can start work on the cascade and pond I have always dreamed of? Better stay tuned!

First day of Retirement

We spent the night at The Willows last night. Had a fabulous meal that lasted 3 and a half hours and included 12 courses. Incredible! After breakfast we packed up and headed for the Whatcom Chief, the little ferry that whisked us back to the mainland.

Arriving home I headed off for my first nap of my retirement. Unable to sleep I got up and mowed the lawn. We also hired an outfit to shovel in 3 inches of new bark into the back garden beds next week. The rest of the day has been about finishing the few details still unfinished with my school website and e-mailing or Facebooking thank you notes to so many that took the time to show up at my departure from school the last time yesterday.

That's it! 1 paragraph describes my first day of retirement. Not too exciting, huh? Well, there's always tomorrow!
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The Last Time!

Where did the time go?

I remember so vividly those freshman at the new Kamiakin High School in Kennewick, Washington in 1978. My job was to make sure those freshman were on campus and that I was tutoring them in the subjects that struggled with--math, English, science.n I had my own portable out in the gravel parking lot and I thought this was a pretty cool job. I saw it snow for the very first time out the window of my room that year.

I remember the little pre-kindergartners who walked into my classroom in Benecia, California two years later. I had completed the coursework for my Montessori certificate and was hired at the school where I trained. It was a five year run that ended with my being the Learning Director/consultant that saw the school grow into a Pre-K through 3rd grade school. Not a great school by any stretch but a great learning ground for me. I knew within a couple of years that I wanted and needed to go earn my public school teaching certificate which I did at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California.

At the end of that year of classes and student teaching, I was hired at little Jackson Elementary School in Fresno, California where I was hired to teach the 6th grade. My very first class is still the one I remember most. Those kids really kept me on my toes. They were and are the standard that every class since has had to attempt to measure up to. Except for a year off (I subbed in Boulder, CO) to follow my wife to do her Doctoral coursework, I stayed at Jackson from 1986 until we left for Hawaii in 1995.

A year in Hawaii working with special needs kids while my wife taught at the University of Hawaii, Hilo and then we moved to Bellingham, Washington. Here is where we at last found our home, nestled between the mountains and the sea--the place I had always dreamed of living. Here also I found Mount Vernon, Washington, a small town 30 miles south of Bellingham, where I began the final segment of my teaching career, again in a little school--Lincoln Elementary.

Here I began a 15 year partnership with Teresa Vaughn. I helped build an award-winning children's theater company, I Can Fly Productions, which produced a musical theater show each year mostly based on a Disney Broadway shows. With other teachers involved, we produced sold-out shows year after year that became huge money makers for funding field trips and other school activities that we could not otherwise have afforded.

I won numerous technology grants that brought tens of thousands of dollars in new computer hardware and software, digital still and video cameras, Smartboards, projectors and lots of training.

I also created the very first school website for an elementary school in Mount Vernon and continued as the webmaster of that site until my retirement 15 years later.

Now, I am about to walk out the door for the last time.

I have touched the lives o well over a 1,000 children in those 33 years. The exact number I'll never know. My hope is that I have done some good in the world.