Summer is almost over - But man what a summer it has been!!!  Our 2 weeks teaching in Sweden was absolutely fantastic.   We loved all the people and we're already trying to figure out when we can return!!  Then we started 3 weeks of playtime!!  We took a 9 day Baltic cruise and then after 2 days in Copenhagen, we boarded another ship for a Norwegian fjords.  Unbelievable adventures.   We flew back to Seattle, had 2 gorgeous days on Vashon Island with George's son & family (thanks to Tom & Marilynn Anderson), then did our 5th Weekend Fling with Randy & Marie!  Now we're on the road to Colorado!!

 Check out all my pictures on Shutterfly. 

Check out my pictures on our Webshots site!
 

Norwegian Cruise - After 2 interesting days in Copenhagen, we started our cruise up and down the west coast of Norway.  The scenery was amazing.  We cruised the Arctic Circle and had pretty rough water.  As a matter a fact, we were the only ship that made it in at Honningsvag.  We had to tender there, but inside the shelter of the Fjord, we had no problem with that.  Took a bus over to North Cape - the northern most spot to visit in Europe.  Each stop just seemed prettier than the last!

Baltic Cruise - Met our cruise buddies in Copenhagen and totally enjoyed the entire cruise.  It wasn't entirely relaxing, but loved every second of it!!  The ocean cooperated and it was relatively smooth for all but the next to the last evening.  Coming out of Oslo, it got a little rough, but nothing too bad.  The weather was wonderful, mostly sunny & hot.  Our favorite stop was St Petersburg, Russia, but Gdansk, Poland and Oslo, Norway were fantastic too.  We did lots of social dancing on board the Star Princess - kept us from gaining too much weight!! 

Sweden - We worked pretty darn hard in Hallstahammer, but it was really fun too.  The dancers were hard workers and we taught at least one dance every day (taught 2 a couple of days!) and danced for 2 hours too!  George did all the cueing until Ake & Birgitta Grahm showed up the last week and did cue a few times to give George a break.  His voice held out, but we were worried about it.  Anyway, made some great new friends and enjoyed visiting with the ones we had met before in Germany in Scotland.  We didn't get to sightsee much, but we're hoping that when we come back, we can really check out the whole country!

Alaska - Wonderful 10 day visit!  A moose wandered across the street as we left the airport!! Started with a beautiful 4th of July weekend with the Wood's family in Sterling on the Kenai!  Mostly sun with a few well placed showers (that big umbrella of Darron's is great for sitting around the fire!  Then back to Anchorage for lots of meals to visit with friends and a guest visit to teach at Jeanette Bock's & Rob Wood's Tuesday class.  Then the State Festival!  It was great fun and lots of "old" friends came to the Hall to visit & dance!

Eatonville, WA - Drove up, got settled at Al & Terri's and enjoyed a few hours visiting Mt Rainier NP!  The mountain showed it's head for us!!  Did get to spend a few hours chatting with Al & Terri inbetween packing for Alaska & Scandinavia!!

McCloud, CA - We spent 3 weeks there (well, except for flying to teach in Spokane & Ellensburg).  We taught a week, danced one week with Bill & Carol and then spent a week hiking with Dan & Sandi Schneider.

Texas visit with family & friends

Bangkok, Thailand (avoided the Red Shirts!!!), Diamond Princess Cruise, China mainland tour!!!!  Check out the pictures on Shutterfly!

St Ann, MO - Fun weekend of Square & Rounds near St Louis, MO!

Quick drive to Rosewood, TX - parked the RV and packed the luggage!

Mesa, Arizona - Finished the season!

Plant City, Florida - Flew into Tampa and stayed with Bob & Kay Close for Curt & Tammy's New Year's Eve event!  We enjoyed teaching our new samba and the Sechrist's Tango!  Great fun!!

Western Caribbean Cruise - Cruised out of Galveston on the RCL Voyager of the Seas to Cozumel, Grand Cayman, & Jamaica. 

French Polynesia - Had a week on the Clipper Ship Star Flyer and 3 nights on either side on Tahiti and Moorea.  Simply amazing!!!

Melbourne & Mornington Peninsula, Australia - 10 glorious days with a fantastic mix of dancing, teaching, & playing!  Stayed with Mike & Beryl Harcourt and had a ball!! 

Colorado Springs Spectacular - Our expected grand time with friends at this, our favorite Dance venue!!!!  Biggest crowd ever.  Even had friends from Dallas & Shreveport show up!!

Seattle Weekend Fling - Great weekend with Randy & Marie Preskitt.  Enjoyed catching up with Tom & Marilynn Anderson at the B&B, plus got to visit with the kids and grandkids!  How perfect can that be?

Loveland Visit - Stopped for a week of fun with Stan & Grace and Mary Jackson!  Ate, visitied, hiked, biked, kayaked, & rested!  Marvelous!

RoundARama - Must say that this was our best RoundARama ever.  Not sure if it was because we got to teach or because we were camping with so many Mesa friends, but whatever we loved it!!!

Chicago Visit - Spent a great week visiting with George's sister and family.  Also finally got to teach in the Chicago area!  Spent a day sightseeing in "Ole Chicago."  Most enjoyable.

ICBDA, Joplin - Wonderful week!  We enjoyed teaching and really enjoyed dancing and learning from the other teachers!!  Not to mention all the socializing! 

Branson Pre-ICBDA Weekend - What fun!  The Robinson's and the Worlock's put together a great weekend!  Doesn't get any better!

Bear Lake Visit - Ted & Nancy treated us to a wonderful 3 days of fun!  Enjoyed the incredible scenery and our time with them!!  I posted a couple of pictures in the Photo Gallery!

McCloud Hiking & more - Dan & Sandi stayed with us for a week and we hiked every day!  This area is just awesome!!

McCloud Dance Weekend & Week - Bill & Carol did an awesome job as expected!  Loved all the dances and the social time!  Spent our day off on a white water rafting trip!  Wonderful!!

Scottish Dance Weekend!  - If the dancers had half as much fun as we did, it was a good time for everyone!  We absolutely loved it!  Many Many Thanks to Valerie & David for putting this all together!!  And Many thanks to all the dancers who came from all over Europe to attend this weekend!  It was definitely the culmination of years of dreams!

Great Britain Vacation - What a fabulous time!  We met Tom & Marilynn and Tom & Marge on the 19th in London and preceded to have a great adventure!  Check out my pictures on both Shutterfly and Webshots.  I have a few pictures posted on this website too.  Here's the travelogues I sent out during the  trip. Travelogues

Cham, Germany - This week is wonderful!  The people are fantastic fun and excellent dancers.  The after parties are great!  Just love this event!  Weather this year was fantastic!  Sunshine and in the high 60's.  Wow!

KRDA Festival - Wow!!!  We had an awesome time!  Flew right into the middle of the worst blizzard of the Central US!!  Too funny!  Actually started snowing just a few minutes before we arrived at the hotel and snowed the rest of the weekend!  Didn't dampen the dancing any!  Had a wonderful time!  Flights were kind to us, so all in all, it was a great weekend!  We flew back early on Sunday in time to have our last Sunday night dance!

WASCA - This weekend was non-stop.  We ran from the time Billie Ann picked us up until Donna took us back to the airport!!  Lots and lots of dancing and dancers.  Really enjoyed seeing many friends from the East Coast that we don't see often!  Even got a little sunshine while we were there!

Palm Springs - Boo hoo!!!! Can't believe this as the last one.  We have so enjoyed this weekend.  Very disappointed that it was not supported enough to allow it to continue.

Worlock's New Year's Eve Weekend - This year we were filling in for Shibata's.  They have just moved back to Japan and it was too expensive for them to come back for the weekend.  After working this weekend, Curt & Tammy have asked us to make it an annual event!!  We are sooooooo excited!  It was great fun.  We loved teaching there AND we got to spend lots of time dancing!  Not to mention it's our favorite way to celebrate our anniversary!

Holiday Vacation - Left Mesa on Dec 13th and had a fantastic 3 week vacation.  Liz & Jeff Weiler traveled with us.  We started with a 7 day cruise on the Celebrity Solstice (Ft Lauderdale/San Juan/St Kitts/St Maarten/Ft Lauderdale).  Then spent 2 days touring the Everglades (took an awesome ranger led canoe trip!!!) and a day tour out to Biscayne NP (saw a mannatee!!!.  Then we drove up to the military resort on Disney World.  We spent 2 days running around the 4 parts of Disney World - rode most of the thrill rides (loved Soaring and Mission Earth!!!!) and saw all the main attractions and loved the evening fireworks!  Took one day to tour the Kennedy Space Center - most impressive!  Enroute to Plant City, we spent the afternoon at Busch Gardens - saw the animals and rode 2 of the most fabulous roller coasters!!!! 

Autumn Fest - Ron & Ree were awesome!!  Danced every programmed dance all weekend!  Felt great to be on the dancing side!  Got lots of social time too.  That's always fun!  Good to see many California friends that came over to visit. 

Red River Rounder's Halloween Ball - Once again Bill & Martha Buck & their club put on a fantastic event!  The featured teachers were Brent & Judy Moore in the 5/6 hall and Jerry & Lucy Pate in the 3/4 hall.  Both couples did a wonderful job!  It was an exciting weekend and everyone had a ball!  Felt funny for us not to fill out the registration for next year - only because we are the featured teachers for the 5/6 hall next year!  Please come join us!

Cen-Tex, Burnet, TX - Too much fun!  We got to help Marie Preskitt celebrate her big 50!!  Can't be!  She still looks 21!  Not fair!  She and Randy did a fantastic job teaching 2 of their own dances.  We look forward to teaching them to you!  It's always soooo much fun to dance in Texas with so many of our friends.

New Mexico RDA, Albuquerque, NM - Great fun and lots of good dancing.  Curt & Tammy were top notch as usual.

Colorado Springs Spectacular - Okay, I'll admit it, this is probably our most favorite weekend.  Of course partly because it's really much more than a weekend.  We stay with Grace & Milo and work at putting together the program and all the logistical requirements while laughing and playing!  This year (our 5th annual) they found us a really great hall and we already have reservations for it next year too.  We also dance with their local group (in their home) and get to enjoy visiting with many of the Colorado area cuers & teachers.  It feels more like we're at a reunion than a working weekend!  We'd love to have new visitors and now we finally have a hall that will allow us to grow!

Weekend Fling - After a quick drive to the USAF Academy at Colorado Springs to leave our home on wheels, we flew to Seattle for this most exciting weekend!  We always love working with Randy & Marie and we love being with all our friends in the Northwest area.  Then to top it off, we get to share a B&B with the Anderson's AND even got to see our son, daughter-in-law and 2 grand daughters too!  Made for too much fun!!  Life is good!

RoundARama - The Institute was awesome.  Such a marvelous educational experience!!  All the dances taught were fun to learn and feel really good when we're dancing.  Can certainly understand why this event has been sold out for sooooo many years.  And we enjoyed a bit of socializing with Johnstone's & Davis's too!  Even stayed around an extra day to plan our parking arrangement for next year at the nearby State Park!

Burr Ridge, IL - We drove over to the south west edge of Chicago to visit George's sister, brother-in-law, & nephew!  Wish we had had more time, but we certainly enjoyed the few days we had.  Even had time to go see the new Batman movie at the IMAX. 

Minnesota Starfest - What a fun dance weekend!  And besides dancing, we ate a lot!  These guys feed you really good food!!  We enjoyed lots of laughing too!  Just an overall great weekend!  Plan to attend next year when Randy & Marie Preskitt will come to visit!

Mediterranean Cruise - Wow!!  Oh Wow!!  This cruise was fantastic!!  Had great weather and smooth seas.  Got to see the Statue of David in the Museum in Florence!  It's just amazing.  And had 2 days in Venice!  Dubrovnik would be a great place to go and spend a week or a month or????  Walking the Walled City was marvelous.  Finally saw the Sistine Chapel!  It was awe inspiring!  And we won at the Casino in Monte Carlo!!  How about that?  The Isle of Capri was gorgeous.  One totally unexpected highlight was getting to take private lessons from an extremely gorgeous Argentine couple from Buenos Aires!  They were on board as the stars of the Tango Bueno Aires show.  We found out about them early on and managed a couple of private lessons with them.  They were unbelievable!  Speaking of shows, the entertainment on board ship was fantastic! The food was wonderful too, don't want to think about that too much!  We definitely over ate!! 

ICBDA 2008 - Yippee!!!!  To our way of thinking, it was a total success.  Check out the page with more info about it.  Click here.  Have to admit we have a sense of relief that it's over!  George was under a bit of stress for his part of it!  The River Walk was really fun.  Especially enjoyed Dick's Last Resort!  And Ron & Marilou had given us Party Central at the Hotel!  Too much fun!!

Visit with Jarkowski's & Cousin's - Well our dear friends bought a fabulous cabin overlooking Bear Lake in Idaho.  They invited us to stop in and we would not miss it!  Wow!!!!  Wonderful time!  Already trying to figure out how to get back there for a longer visit!  Sure glad they have a rough winter there, or we might loose them from Mesa to that gorgeous setting!

McCloud, CA - Can't rave enough about this awesome dance place and event.  Of course it's no secret that we think Bill & Carol are the greatest, so to spend a glorious week dancing and taking lessons from them is always the highlight of our summer.  We almost missed it this year because our RV was stuck at the factory - luckily for us, friends stepped up and let us stay with them in their rental home.  It was wonderful and we definitely owe them big time!!!!  Besides the dancing, we enjoyed the Shasta Dinner Train again.  Think we'll make that an annual event!

Spokane, WA - Wish we had had the time to be in this gorgeous country with all our friends in our RV instead a quick trip in by air!  The weekend was great fun for us.  Great to see so many of our Mesa friends in their own hometown!  Enjoyed see Jack & Judy DeChenne.  It's always fun to be a part of a sold out event!

Salem, OR - We're beginning to feel like family in Salem.  We've got so many friends there and John & Suzette treat us like we're special to boot!!  What a combination!  It was great to see Bill & Charlie Coldiron and see that they are dancing as well as ever!  I got to go shopping with the girls!!  It was fantastic.

Fontana Village, NC - Don't have enough time or space to describe this fantastic week.  I am not kidding!!  Put this bi annual event on your calendar and get here!  4 teacher couples with dancing 3 times daily for a week.  This year it even included a boat ride on Fontana Lake as a relaxing afternoon playtime!  We loved every minute of it.  For us, it's perfect because we not only get to teach and George gets to cue, but in our time off, we get to take the teaches from the other working couples!!!  A win win situation for us!  AND, lots of folks there like to have after parties!!  Heaven!!  If you want to hear a funny story from a first time Fontana visitor, look up Toni Paull or Paulette Lassage - just don't tell them that I was the one that clued you in!!!! 

Atlanta, GA - Flew into the Atlanta Airport and headed straight to the Gupton's weekly class!  Had a ball dancing with these folks, some old friends and some new ones!  Gene & Doreen Thornton took care of us and we enjoyed a great time with them.  Really are lucky to know such wonderful people!  Did a little sight seeing around Atlanta (Atlanta Aquarium was great), and enjoyed hearing Doreen's Sweet Adeline group at their annual performance.

Mid-Tex Jamboree in Austin, TX - Drove down to Austin for a weekend of Mainstream/Plus by Tim Tyl and we got to do a Phase 3/4 Workshop.  We stayed with Jerry & Lucy Pate and it was a great weekend.  We were surprised by a friend from Alaska (she's moved to San Antonio), a friend from Mesa (she's moved to SE Texas) and a couple from Dallas.  Really fun!!

Family time in Northeast Texas - We enjoyed birthday parties, a visit to my Aunt & cousins in Texarkana, Mother's Day, and just lots of fun regular dinners with both brothers, my sister-in-law, and my parents of course.  We also got to attend a weekly dance workshop session with Ezelle's Rounders and one square dance and another round dance evening.  All in all, it was wonderful and too short.

Saguaro National Park & Kartchner Caverns - Didn't have a huge amount of time, but enjoyed 2 full relaxing days to sight see and tour the caves.  Very enjoyable.  Must go back again and tour one of the other rooms.  George got to purchase his Lifetime pass to the National Parks.  How about that!!

Star Fest 2008 - George got to help Curt cue.  The weekend was wonderful.  Great way to finalize a great season. 

Palm Springs Spectacular - Awesome as usual!  2 fabulous dances and great times dancing!  Can't loose if you get to take teaches from Bill & Carol Goss!!!!

HOUSTON FIESTA - Wow!!!!!  This was a wonderful weekend!!!  We were very lucky and the flights there and back were smooth and on time!  We had so much fun with all our "old" Texas friends and made some new ones too!  Just love getting to visit Texas.  Didn't get up north to visit family (flew in on Friday and back to Mesa on Sunday - had to get back for the evening dance!!!), but felt closer to them anyway!  Mark & Pam and their club -Prow's Proud Pride - treated us like royalty and we enjoyed every second of it!

EGYPT and the Nile - This trip was the experience of a life time!  I still can't believe we were really there!  Read about it and look at a few of the 2000 pictures I took by clicking here!!

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This site was last updated 08/29/2010