Saturday in Different Cities

Since Grandpa was in town and could supervise grandchildren, Kevin took April with him on an overnight trip. Last November, Kevin had been asked to speak about FTHLs in Las Vegas, Nevada, at some meetings. Lest any readers think it was a nice romantic get-away, think otherwise. The reservation Kevin was certain he had made last November was not on the hotel's records, so we ended up at a Super 8 Motel down the street from the event site. Kevin was up until 2:00 a.m. preparing his talk while April read her Book Club book and fell asleep long before 2:00 a.m. But we did get a chance to have uninterrupted talks on the long drive, and the meetings were informative.

Anyway, Kevin was part of a group of invited speakers who presented research at a special Horned Lizard Session of the 2012 Desert Tortoise Symposium. The tortoise folks like to have diversity and apparently devote one session to a different reptilian species. 

Here are the Horned Lizard Honchos (l-r): Dr. Kevin V. Young, Dr. Wade C. Sherbrooke, Dr. Phil C. Rosen, Dr. Cameron W. Barrows, Dr. Andy Suarez, and Dr. Adam D. Leache. We knew Wade, Phil, and Cam from prior projects, but it was fun to meet Andy and Adam, whom Kevin only knew from publications. Abstracts from their various presentations can be viewed here if anyone is interested.

Las Vegas, 12:02 p.m.

While we were engaged with hearing all about different horned lizard studies, back on the home front in Yuma, Megan and Ian assisted a friend with his Eagle Scout project. They helped pick citrus from an orchard to donate to the food bank. Luckily Grandpa snapped a photo of them as he dropped them off.

Yuma, 8:51 a.m.

Post fruit picking, the children accompanied Grandpa to the hardware store (again!) for more parts for fixing the electrical curiosities in our house. This is the "Popcorn Store" according to Dallin because they have a popcorn machine--and naturally the best part about going to the store is to get a bag of free popcorn.

Yuma, 4:05 p.m.

Kevin and April arrived back home around 8:30 p.m. to find that everyone had had a grand time with Grandpa.