Last April - May (Costa Rica)

I am so behind on posts, but I am hoping to get a few things posted before I leave for Costa Rica (again) this summer to teach the graduate fundamentals in ecology course.

Here are a ton of pictures from my last Costa Rica trip. I was in La Selva for a week attending a workshop on communication and learning in science -- it was a really fun/informative/productive workshop and I met a lot of really great educators there! Here are some photos I took at La Selva during breaks in our workshop program:

From La Selva, Deedra (coordinating the OTS course with me) and I drove south to the highlands in the middle of the country to visit one of our field stations -- Cuerci/Cerro de la Muerte. This site is in the mountains so it is really cold up there!

After staying in the mountains for 3 nights, we traveled farther south in Costa Rica (almost to the Panamanian border) to another OTS field station -- Las Cruces! We also took a day trip during one of our Las Cruces days to drive up to a higher elevation site called Las Alturas.

That's all for now, but I will be back in Costa Rica (teaching for 2 months) -- I leave this Friday!

Cherry Blossom Festival

Another belated batch of pictures -- this time from the Cherry Blossom Festival (about a month ago). Carlos and I took a little walk down to the Tidal Basin, along with about 2 zillion other people, to look at the cherry blossoms (mostly Prunus yedoensis) in all of their glory. They were very beautiful, but I enjoyed walking in and around our neighborhood a little more -- the crowds at the festival definitely detracted a bit from the pretty trees. Still, we had a nice time and it was fun to wander under the trees as the delicate white petals fell to the floor like snow. We will have to do it again next year and maybe bring a picnic!

Spring flowers in DC

I am so behind on my posts -- things are shaping up to be extremely busy this summer with work, travel, conferences, etc. Anyway, I had been meaning to post some pictures of the pretty flowers that came out this spring in and around my neighborhood. Now it's almost summer and I still haven't posted them! Here is spring-flower-picture-overload:

Whew...lots of pictures -- and there will be more when I (finally) get around to posting about Carlos' and my trip to the Tidal Basin during the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Back from Costa Rica (yet again)~

I got back from my most recent Costa Rica visit a couple of nights ago and I am also busy getting the house prepared for my buddy Julia to come visit! I will download, organize, and post photos from Costa Rica soon -- I was there for a little over 10 days and I attended a great workshop on scientific communication/teaching, visited the mountains, visited the lowland forest, and visited premontane forest. It was quite a lot to fit into a fairly short period of time -- stay tuned for pics!