Remembering

This square tree walk was so short and easy. I remember the only other time I tried it, I couldn't even make it part way up. And then I remembered why:

8 months pregnant, with two rather large appendages! No wonder it was so hard to walk!

David's birthday 2011. Celebrating with this lovely duo. Just before Simon was born. A tradition of David birthdays in El Valle.

Square Trees

One of the nicest things about our A-frame airbnb was how close it was to good hikes. We did this once twice. The 'square' trees of Panama 🌳. 

Simon even found a square root! Which prompted a lot of discussion of squares and their roots: 100, 9, 25, 49, 121, 144, 4. The list goes on....

Altogether a fun excursion for LEAP DAY!

Happy DAVID

The reason for our El Valle trip - a celebration of David!! Belated birthday presents, belated birthday song, belated birthday hugs and squishes.

We love you David!!!!!

Serpentarium

I did have to keep up with work on this trip... David took the kids off to a few of his favorite El Valle attractions. The humble serpentarium was high on the list. Wrapping the kids up in boas while I caught up on manuscripts... :)

El Valle

Flowering trees. Mountain air. Loads of open air (Coco-friendly) restaurants at our fingertips.

A-frame

We have a new way to visit El Valle now - well, to visit almost anywhere. We go onto airbnb, click the pets welcome filter, and see which houses are left.

We've gotten some interesting ones this way. We really liked this A-frame, Swiss chalet-esque house in El Valle. Here celebrating David's belated birthday.

I love how loved this house is. In addition to multiple watercolors of the house on the walls, there's a 3D model on the shelves..... A house well-loved.

Beach day...

With Freya and Benji. And Christian and Daisy. Who are leaving Panama next week! And will be missed... :(

Anteater

Damond Kyllo's anteater mural at sunset. On the wall of Simon's school. I love this one...

Pipeline Sleepover

Simon had a rather extreme sleepover invitation this week. Except for wonderful overnights with his cousins, he has had no desire to go on any sleepovers at all. But when he played at Alistair's house last Friday, and was invited to join Alistair and his dad Andrew on a jungle adventure, he came home brimming with excitement. A group of volunteers has been slowly repairing Pipeline Road, a dirt track that extends 17.5 kilometers into the rainforest of Soberanía National Park, a road that has been gradually decaying over the years... This week's expedition was part work party, removing trees that had fallen across the road and filling in the very large holes in the road. And part camping trip. Making our way all the way to Rio Mendoza to sleep in jungle hammocks, or in Simon and Alistair's case - a trailer turned jungle hut. For the boys - pure heaven. But from no sleepovers at all to this....? For still tiny 8-year old Simon? Too big a jump for me! I asked Simon if I could also join. In the end there were seven of us - me, Andrew, Louise, Andy, Kitty, Simon and Alistair. Which was really fun. And Simon did amazing....!  First jungle sleepover.

Gamboa on film

The 16-year old brother of one of Gwen's little friends (Elisa) made this video. It captures the lovely delapitated gentleness of the Gamboa spirit so well!!

70 sixth graders!

I'm not sure quite I agreed to this, but somehow I ended up hosting Gwen's entire sixth grade class in Gamboa Feb 20! We called it 'A Day of Science at the Smithsonian' and called in all the troops - the researchers were just wonderful at taking this on. We had 10 different stations that we cycled the kids through - from bats (of course!) to butterflies, ant-fungal pathogens, stingless bees, toucans tracking, scientific illustration, mychorizae, orchid bees and more... We have an artist-in-residence in the bat lab now who designed a scientific passport for the kids, every station they visited they got a stamp of that study species - the kids loved it! It was really fun for us, the researchers hosting it, too. But exhausting!!!! We all agreed that doing science is way easier than inspiring and teaching a large group of 11 to 12 year olds.....