Monday, October 17, 2011

Frontiers in Education, Mount Rushmore, and a Tribute to the Beatles on Ice -- All in South Dakota






I am back from Paris and my husband is back from Rapid City, South Dakota. Since this is the first time that both of us were away at conferences while our daughter was at school, she had the experience of being a "boarder" rather than a "day student" at Deerfield Academy this past week (she loved it). Deerfield graciously agreed to house her while we were on professional travel (and her field hockey team won two games during this period so everything worked out well except for some misadventures I had in Paris that I will share in another blogpost).

We have been to Paris multiple times but how many folks can say that they have been to Rapid City, South Dakota (no, I was not entirely envious of my husband)?!

We all reconnected yesterday afternoon back in Amherst (after my Delta / Air France flight from Paris to Boston during which I endured about 3 hours of turbulence).

My husband spoke at the Frontiers in Education Conference in Rapid City and the above photos were taken by him. The conference even involved a special tour of Mount Rushmore. There were quite a few international speakers at the conference. He was fascinated by the landscape and what he saw in Rapid City.

Coincidentally, the ice skating program, Rain -- A Tribute to the Beatles on Ice, was being rehearsed and performed at the Civic Center there so my husband got a chance to see and speak to Todd Eldredge, the Olympic skater (who also happened to have performed at the Mullins Center at UMass Amherst where we had a chance to meet him since our daughter is also a figure skater). The show will air on NBC on Sunday, November 6, 4-6 pm EST.