Super Blue Blood Moon

The moon looked pretty super as we were driving to the Rincon basketball game late yesterday afternoon.  It appeared larger than normal, rising over Santa Catalinas.  Beautiful! 

We got up by 5:15 this morning, ran out the front door, and saw the lunar eclipse!  I set the timer on my computer and we went outside every 4 minutes for the next hour and a half.  We watched as the eclipse went from partial to a full eclipse, and then the moon appeared a reddish copper color.  Amazing to see the super blue blood moon, a combination of lunar eclipse, blood moon and super moon, visible in the western hemisphere for the first time in 152 years!

Senior Night Basketball

Tatiana and Elizabeth invited us to their senior night basketball game, Rincon vs. Tucson High.  We know both girls from the Boys and Girls Club.  Both play for Rincon.  We arrived in time for each of the girls to walk out onto the basketball court with their parents, as each senior player was announced, with their plans for the future.  We stayed for the game.  Rincon lost to Tucson High.  It was a terrific game to the last seconds!

 

The Statues That Walked Lecture

On Sunday afternoon, we went to a lecture at the University of Arizona by Dr. Terry Hunt, the new Dean of the Honors College at UA.  He has researched over many years on Easter Island, Rapa Nui.  He co-wrote the book The Statues That Walked, about the mystery of how 1000 stone statues were moved across the island of Rapa Nui.  Dr. Hunt talked about the history of the island and its people, and showed a short video of the moment when he believes they determined how the statues were moved.  The experiment was being filmed by National Geographic and was made into a documentary and featured on the cover of the magazine.  The statues were steadied with three ropes held by 18 strong men, and rocked back and forth to move forward.  So interesting!

 

Study Abroad

Papa and I believe strongly in the value of study abroad for college students.  Whitney spent her junior year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris.  Claire studied French in Paris and studied one summer in Greece.  All three of our girls traveled abroad with us since they were in elementary school.  There are benefits to study abroad that last a lifetime.

Papa serves on a Foundation Board that has donated scholarship funds for UA Study Abroad.  On Friday, the University of Arizona Study Abroad Office hosted a small fair.  We went specifically to meet Donato, the Professor and Program Director for the Study Abroad Program “Mediterranean Diet and Health”.  After talking with him, we came home and made reservations to spend a few days in Verona to audit Donato’s class.  We’ll go on from there to Orvieto, where we plan to spend a couple of days auditing the UA Study Abroad classes there too.  We will stay two weeks in Orvieto.

There are many benefits to studying abroad.   One recent study says, “ According to the University of California, 97% of students who studied abroad found a job within 12 months after their college graduation.  By comparison, only 49% of college graduates who did not study abroad were employed within 12 months.  Studies also show that students who studied abroad earned 25% more than their peers who did not study abroad.   An average of 92% of employers prefer transversal skills in their employees, which you learn when studying abroad.  For example, you learn about collaboration, flexibility, different styles of working and the ability to communicate effectively.  Employers know this when they look at a resume and see study abroad experience.”

Yes, we are proponents of Study Abroad!

Gardening

I love working in our yard!  It was my "job" when I was growing up on the farm, to help take care of the yard.  I've never grown past enjoying gardening.  Over the past few weeks, we've enjoyed beautiful weather and I've spent an hour or more almost every day in our garden, trimming, pulling out overgrown brittlebrush and prickly pear, and tidying up.  Our first cactus blossom of 2018 opened today!  A new flower stalk has started growing on an agave, a few aloe are blooming, barrel cactus fruits are ripe, and saguaro arms are growing.  Beautiful!

 

Happy Birthday, Audrey!

Today is our first born daughter's 36th birthday.  We are so proud of you, Audrey!  

Happy Birthday!

Auctioneer at Tucson Museum of Art

We were invited to an event last evening at the Tucson Museum of Art, "Tips from an Auction House Insider."  Marin Hindman of Leslie Hindman Auctioneers talked about estate valuables and the importance of determining what will be done with those valuables over time.  She gave example after example where the owners made different choices based on the circumstances, ie. chose to keep family heirloom furniture whose market value had dropped because it was no longer fashionable, chose to sell pieces of jewelry because their daughters did not live a similar lifestyle as the parents and they could use the proceeds for their children's college funds, another family amassed an expensive art collection as an investment for their heirs and it did not hold its value, and a story about an appraiser going to a home to appraise a painting and as he was going out the door he noticed something in a pile to be donated to Goodwill that turned out to be worth hundreds of thousands!  She also talked about the necessity of deciding who will get our valuables upon our death and making a written list for our heirs.  There's no reason to quibble!  So interesting! 

Soccer Game

Sabrina invited us to come to one of her soccer games.  We went to watch her team, Catalina High School, play Sabino High School, last night.  Sabrina is a sophomore this year.  She is Rudy's "little sister."  We met Rudy at the Boys and Girls Club close to five years ago and have been fortunate to become friends with his family.  We sat with his parents and younger brother at the soccer game.  We had a good time, even though Sabrina's team lost!

 

University Historic Tour

Papa and I went on the University of Arizona Historic Tour this morning.  According to our guide, "The University of Arizona was founded in 1885. After the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant of 1862, the push for a university in Arizona grew. The University of Arizona was approved by the Arizona Territory's "Thieving Thirteenth"  Legislature in 1885, which also selected the city of Tucson to receive the appropriation to build the university. Tucson had hoped to receive the appropriation for the territory's mental hospital, which carried a $100,000 allocation instead of the $25,000 allotted to the territory's only university (Arizona State University was also chartered in 1885, but at the time it was created as Arizona's normal school, and not a university).  Tucson's contingent of legislators was delayed in reaching Prescott due to flooding on the Salt River and by the time they arrived, back-room deals allocating the most desirable territorial institutions had been made. Tucson was largely disappointed with receiving what was viewed as an inferior prize. With no parties willing to provide land for the new institution, the citizens of Tucson prepared to return the money to the Territorial Legislature until local business owners decided to donate the land to build the school. Construction of Old Main, the first building on campus, began on October 27, 1887, and classes met for the first time in 1891 with 32 students in Old Main.  Because there were no high schools in Arizona Territory, the university maintained separate preparatory classes for the first 23 years of operation."

We walked about the historic buildings on campus, including inside Old Main, where the UA President's office is located and the new UA President stopped by to look at old photographs with us.  The old photos are particularly interesting, with the Santa Catalinas in the background, and not much other development.  UA is known for many things, but particularly as a research university.  It has been awarded more NASA grants for space exploration than any other university nationally.  Currently, researchers in the Mirror Lab at UA are working to build the world's most advanced telescope, that will be transported from UA to a permanent mountaintop site in the Chilean Andes.  It was all interesting to us!