Summer of Travel!

I have to catch up! I think I'm at least two trips behind. So first, Calgary.

I taught summer school for a week after returning from Philadelphia and camping, and then it was off to Calgary. I had a great time at the SMART Exemplary Educators Summit. They invited 77 teachers from 22 different countries to come to Calgary for a week to learn together about technology in Education. It was a great experience! We arrived in Calgary on Sunday. We had some time before the opening dinner, so we did a little bit of downtown sightseeing.

 Then, when the week began, they really kept us busy from 7:30-5:30 every day. We took classes, worked on collaborative projects, learned about new technologies, helped developers with feedback on new products, participated in a Hackathon where we helped SMART think of and create new products, and more. Some of this is so new we weren't allowed to take photographs and had to sign confidentiality agreements so that we don't disclose the companies secrets!

On Thursday, they had a "white hat ceremony" where they gave us all white cowboy hats and made us honorary citizens of Calgary. It was very fun...

 On Friday morning, there was a double rainbow on display right outside the dorm window (they had us staying in college dorm rooms, which was fine, but a little strange.):

 On our last night in Calgary, they had a masquerade dinner to say goodbye to everyone:

 A few group pictures of all of us:

I flew home on Saturday, and then started teaching summer school again on Monday. After another week of summer school and work, then it was time for our vacation. More on that in a minute!

The 4th and another Camping Trip

By the time I got home from Philadelphia, Jeff and Fran had arrived for a visit. On Friday, we spent a little time visiting Mukilteo, which has a cute little historic light house and beach with a park nearby. 

 The view from top of the lighthouse:

 Jackson was excited because the gift shop had army men style pirates! He's been all talk about pirates and treasure and shooting canons!

 They even had a University Extension group talking about marine life at the beach.

 The lighthouse is in sight of the ferry dock as well, but we were all glad we weren't going on the ferry because the line was literally miles long. A lady I work with who lives on Whidbey island said the ferry lines have required waits over 2 hours this last week!

For the 4th of July, we just had some family over for lunch.

 The kids liked like popsicles.

Jack was very excited to see his cousin Ari and to play with balloons!

On Sunday the 5th, we headed out for a couple of days camping in North Cascade National Park. It was hot! Nearly too hot to do anything, but we did anyway. Oh, and I got stung by a bee on my hip, which swelled up a lot and itched like crazy! So, perhaps not the best camping trip, but good company and fun anyway.  We took a boat ride on Diablo lake...

 We rode up to the Ross Lake Dam Powerhouse, where we were able to get out and tour the facility and view the dam.

Then, we also visited the Trail of Cedars for a walk, and it was very pretty and had nice signs to tell you about the different kinds of trees, and there were lots of different kinds of trees. 

 Jack liked walking on fallen trees.

 There were lots of big, tall trees.

 The trail starts with a really neat walking bridge over the Skagit River.

The breeze on the lake and then the shade of the tall trees helped combat the heat! Jack also liked the historic train engine in the town of Newhalem.