Graduations in Colorado and New Hampshire, plus some special birthdays!

Dan is getting ready for his engineering department's ceremony. Alison is starting her junior year in engineering. This summer she'll work in Bolivia and Paraguay in the "Engineers without Borders" program. Dan will work one more summer on the Continental Divide at 10,000 feet with the City of Boulder Watershed as a crew leader before starting the job search.

Dr. Joel Correia, with his bride Karen, getting ready for his geography department's ceremony!

Divide and conquer! Mom, Dad, Abby, and Alison joined us at Dan's ceremony. Joel's parents, Matt, and Karen attended Joel's ceremony.

Sibs

Dan with Grandma and Grandpa Elwood. Grandpa recently celebrated his 91st birthday!  His bride is still only 39, of course.

Dan's birthday dinner with Matt, Abs, Nathan, Dan, Alison, Grandpa, Grandma, Craig, Monica, Karen, Joel, Pat, and Doug.

Anthony, Nathan, and Dan's graduation party.

Playing some music at the party! Alison's pretty darn good!

Joel and company en route to their ceremony.

Our niece, Kelly, graduated from the U of New Hampshire in hospitality management! Here she is with her proud parents. My brother Tom graduated from the same program and university shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct.

Grandma and Grandpa Elwood drove to NH from NY to see Kelly's departmental ceremony.

Happy 92nd Birthday to Aunt Harriet, my mom's sister. She is with great grandson Dominic.

Also Happy 91st Birthday to Uncle Mike, mom's brother, pictured here with his great grandson Damien!

Marta stopped by for a visit the other day! We right away went out and did all of our favorite things - hiked, played guitars, etc. Tom grilled us up some delicious salmon and we still had some fresh wild asparagus, too!

Spring things in IL, AZ, and Mexico

 2018 marked 20 years of annual trips to Starved Rock with Illinois State students to explore Illinois' most popular state park.

ISU high ropes course. We nearly froze, but it was great fun!

In March Tom and I visited Karen and Joel in Tucson. Karen works at the Sonoran Institute whose goal is to help people and communities achieve harmony between the built environment and the natural world. Specifically Karen and her colleagues have been working to restore the Colorado River Delta.

"The Wall."  This portion separates California with Mexicali, Baja California.

South of Mexicali, the Sonoran Institute has partnered with the Arenitas Wastewater Treatment Plant to establish a 250 acre wetland which provides further treatment to wastewater and serves as a refuge for wildlife in the Delta.

Here is Karen checking out the native grasses planted in the wetland adjacent the water treatment ponds.

In another region of the Colorado River Delta, efforts are underway to reestablish wildlife habitats through the planting of cottonwood seedlings and other plants native to the region.  Here are the trenches where the water will flow to new seedlings. 

This iPad is supposed to be showing the GPS maps which locate where the trees and shrubs will be planted. Instead, it is showing a fine reflection of Tom Schlatter!

Here is another area of the Delta where plants have already been established.

 Later in the week we caught up with niece Teri and fiance Ryan at the Culinary Dropout restaurant.  

Sabino Canyon hike with Karen and Joel. Dr. Joel has been a Post-doc at the U of AZ conducting research and teaching several classes.

Sitting the Selkow sibs.