The Farewell Tour Continues

First, we went camping with Faun and Randy, Mira and Bruce, Beth, Carol, and four dogs. It was a weekend of record-breaking heat in Flagstaff, but we still found lots of water in the tanks and even patches of snow for the dogs to enjoy. As an engineer for a large oil company (not BP), Bruce has traveled to many parts of the world, and we had a good time talking about gestures in Nigeria (a smooching sound that is intended to get someone's attention) and Brazil (where it is not OK to make the OK hand gesture). We will have an interesting time discovering Chinese gestures, which I assume will come more quickly than the spoken slang.

Next, we met many of my relatives, including my father's remaining siblings and sister-in-law, at a seniors' bowling tournament at Sam's Town in Las Vegas. I've been going up there for a few years to watch my Uncle Steve burn up the alleys in the Primetimers annual tournament, but this year we added a Maywald/Hayes family reunion, with family coming from the Houston area, San Antonio, Phoenix and suburbs, Vegas, Indiana (my side) and South Dakota. It was a blast to see everyone and we got lots of good pictures. We still have a big farewell party in Phoenix in July, but this was a nice start, and I got to show off the school brochure with the nice picture of the new auditorium.

Finally, we flew out to Louisville for a week with friends and family there. Again, we had a huge showing from Joe's family, with four generations represented. We were originally scheduled to meet in a city park, but local heads prevailed to move to a restaurant, and no sooner had we been seated than the northern Indiana skies opened for a "frog-strangler," as Andy Griffith would say. Nevertheless, we had a great time and everyone agreed that we should do it more often. Maybe next summer.

We've had more communication from our school about various opportunities. Jeff Stubbs, our old friend, wrote to ask about interest in pursuing online doctorates (EdD), although he hasn't nailed down a school as yet. He's talking to places like UCLA and Princeton, which really makes me think twice about adding yet another diploma to my wall. Jeff Martin wrote to give some basic details about our duties in activities, where each staff member leads or works with two after school clubs. He talked a lot about sports (probably because he's a PE teacher), so I'm wondering if I can start a bowling club. Today as we were driving through Indiana, we donated to a football team because the mascot was the Dragons, so we felt like that would give us a leg up on supporting our new school (also the Dragons), so there's our little bit of karma for the week.

Next week: getting home and starting the packing/yard renovation/clothing decisions... or maybe we'll just take some long naps.