First Day of 1st Grade

I know I am very behind on updating this blog with all the things that have happened this month, but I am getting to it.

Today was the first day of school and Gina is starting first grade. I don't know what time she woke up, but she was in my room at 6:45am with her dress on and needing me to zipper it up in the back. Andrew was up with her and they did a good job of waking Dylan up too.

I had figured out that Gina's school is only a mile away from our house, a reasonable walking distance. Gina's former preschool teacher doesn't drive and used to walk a mile with her son to school every day. If she could do it every day, I decided that we could do it at least a few times a week. Gina was all for it.
Andrew and Dylan got to ride the whole way. I ended up carrying Gina's backpack and pad of paper but she was a real trooper, keeping up with my quick pace. We left at 8am and got to school at 8:25am. I was busy handing out first day packets to all the parents and making sure Andrew didn't tip the stroller over with Dylan in it. It wasn't long before the 2nd bell had rung, the door opened and the kids started to go inside. I quickly got a few shots of Gina going into her classroom.
This year, she is in a 1/2 combo class and it is taught by two teachers: Marile on the right has taught for 35 years and teaches in the class 3 days a week. Jennifer, on the left, has been teaching 7 years and is in the classroom 2 days a week. There is also an aide who works 4 mornings a week.

When I picked Gina up at 2:30pm she was all smiles. She said she enjoyed coloring in her name tag best and she likes having her own desk. The school year is off to a good start.

Coming Home from Montana

A few more pictures from our vacation in Montana:

Above is Dylan looking out on the porch. A deer was in the yard but was gone by the time I took this picture.

One of the highlights for Gina and Andrew was going into town for ice cream. Here they are enjoying their cones after playing in the nearby park for a while. 

A highlight for Dylan was the cat, Hollyhock. She wasn't crazy about all the new people in the house. Initially she was under one of the beds and would come out at night once the kids were asleep. Once the kids figured out where she was hiding and chased her around the house, she felt safer in this cabinet in my dad's room. So Dylan would wander into the room every so often to look a the cat and the cat would stay huddled in the corner of the cabinet.

Going home was a two day ordeal. It would have been better to spread it out over three days. Once we got to Twin Falls Idaho, we stopped at a bookstore. I had wanted to get a book on tape but the only decent one for kids was Anne of Green Gables. Gina enjoyed it though Andrew got tired of it sooner. It did help the drive though to give them something else to listen to and give us a break from the Summer in Andyland CD.

Mexico City

I am finally getting around to posting about the International AIDS conference in Mexico City. It was four crazy days of talks and seminars with a little sightseeing thrown in. This conference is always fun to go to though a little overwhelming. There is a little bit of science, a lot of stuff on policy, social issues surrounding HIV and AIDS, and always a little craziness. There were 20,000 scientists, doctors, nurses, drug reps, people who work for non-government organizations (NGOs), activists, all from countries around the world working on the problem of HIV. I got to see Bill Clinton speak on the second day and he always gives a good speech. I didn't even realize he was on the program until someone mentioned that he was speaking in half an hour, but I rushed over and got a good seat in front of all the media cameras. There were the usual protesters and activists. Unfortunately I had forgotten my camera. But here is photo from the AIDS 2008 website:

I spent the last month working on an oral presentation given by a former student in the lab. The presentation was on her honors thesis from a year ago and since then she has been working at the NIH back East. So I got to rework her data into a 10 minute talk and then she got to get up in front of everyone and deliver it. She did really well and I'm just glad that she was able to make it so it wasn't me on the podium. Then we went out to dinner to celebrate her birthday and the talk. We went to a great Mexican restaurant that served huge margaritas. We split 3 of them between 8 people. I don't usually drink but I had margaritas and/or wine three nights in a row.

This picture above is from the opening ceremony. They had wonderful dancers and musicians doing traditional dances. Then there were a lot of speeches that went on for a bit, but I did get to see the Secretary General of the UN and the president of Mexico speak. 

The conference wouldn't be complete without giant walking condoms (below).  This area is where all the companies have their booths and the posters are in the back of the hall (I think 1000 posters were presented in all). There is another area called the Global Village where there is a lot of artwork, different kinds of media presentations and booths from groups mostly from developing and third world countries selling stuff to support various organizations. I bought a bracelet for Gina made in South Africa to support orphans and a beautiful pink and purple scarf from Thailand. It would have been very easy to spend even more.

I did get one chance to do a little sightseeing. One afternoon I headed over to the Anthropology Museum and wandered around for three hours. While I was there, it started to pour and then hail. I was definitely glad to be inside. Below is a huge stone tablet from an Aztec altar. It was originally thought to be a calendar and is often referred to as the Sun Calendar but now they think it was part of an altar where sacrifices were made.

Overall, I really enjoyed being in Mexico City. There are parts that are definitely beautiful but you don't have to go far to find parts that are very poor. The drivers in the city are insane. We had to take taxis a number of times and it is amazing that there are not more accidents. The cars just zip in and out of lanes, sometimes paying attention to lights and signs. In the evenings the traffic was incredibly bad. One evening it took over an hour to get to a place that normally should take 15 minutes.

In 2010, the conference will be in Vienna. I hope I get to go.

A $500 Mistake

I'm trying to catch up with all the events of the past month, so these posts are a little out of order. This post is about the end of my trip to Mexico. I'll do another about the rest of my visit to Mexico City.

My plan for leaving Mexico City was to take a 7am flight directly to SFO which would arrive at 9:45am which would leave plenty of time to go to San Jose to get a rental car for our trip to Tahoe the next day and then run a few errands before having to pick up the kids.

The bus service that I had paid for picked me up at the hotel at 3:30am, very early considering that at that time in the morning it took all of 15 minutes to get to the hotel (normally it can take up to 1hr to get to the airport in rush hour traffic). So my bags and I arrived at the airport at 3:45am and then had to wait 20 minutes for the United check in counter to open up.

Once I got up to the counter and handed over my ticket info and passport, the woman asked for the departing form. FORM?? It was the piece of paper that they tore off the entry form when I first arrived. I remember that form and I distinctly remember tossing it away the day before. Usually I save all that kind of paperwork, but this time I wasn't thinking. Fine, the woman said, you then need to go to immigration downstairs to get a new form. Immigration opens promptly at 7am. 7AM???!!! Exactly when my flight was supposed to leave and at 7am, it wasn't likely to be delayed. The next flight is at 6:30pm and gets into SFO around midnight. I felt my stomach sink. This would ruin all of my plans for the day, all over a stupid mistake.

I took my bags downstairs to immigration and sat by the door. I started to think about when I actually threw that piece of paper away. Maybe it was in the afternoon, after the maids had come in to clean the room? I was actually near the taxi stand and as it turns out, I had an extra ticket to take a taxi from the airport to the hotel. So I grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel. Fifty dollars later, I was back to the airport but no departing form. I was feeling just a little panicky just now. I went to the ticket counter to see what else I could do.

The ticket counter lady confirmed that the next direct flight would be at 6:30pm at an extra cost of about $200. Wasn't there anything else, even something that would go through Chicago or some other big city? She indicated that it could cost up to $700 more to do something like that but then she started looking at different options. The first option she came up with would take me through Washington DC and get me into SFO at 7pm. Well, that was better than midnight. She did some more checking. Finally she came up with a 8:30am flight on Mexicana airlines to LA and then LA to SFO, getting in at 2pm. Great! And how much extra was this going to cost? An extra $400. Definitely better than $700, so I booked it.

Then I got to wait in line at Immigration. It took another 20 minutes since I was no longer first in line, plus I had to go to the ATM just outside the office to get more money to pay the $50 to get a new card. But I was able to make my new flight. I got to sleep a little plus they served breakfast (green tamales) which I wouldn't have received on United. A short stop in LA with time to get lunch and I was back in the Bay Area around 2pm.

It then took 2 hrs to take a shuttle bus down to San Jose to pick up the rental car. I had just enough time to swing by the house and pick up my car which has all the car seats, get a few things for the kids to eat and then go pick everyone up. I had planned on taking them to the park to eat dinner so that part went smoothly.

Since we were headed up to Tahoe the next day, I was up until about 11pm getting stuff together. I think I was up for about 22 hours in all, a very long day.