Ah well, I knew this week wouldn’t be any less busy as I had to take care of regular tasks, plus a few I had put off while working on the Celebration. It went well and we will modify a few things for next year. I wasn’t expecting to have two extra events thrown in and not that they were arduous or unpleasant, merely took time. Then, notwithstanding the thought I would get a gap after covering the Memorial Day ceremony, no such luck. I now have a nighttime annual event for Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day. I enjoy the event; it’s just usually earlier in the month.

Okay, with that “poor me moment” out of the way, let me move on to say the event I participated in Tuesday night with high school students in the Mexican-American Council program College and Career Prep was a delight. Seven teams worked for a few months to create a “travel agency” putting together a trip for two adults and two teenagers (boy and girl) with a budget of $6,000. Trip could be up to a week and they had to research every aspect, cost out each item and do a visual presentation supporting everything. Some teams chose to duplicate the Powerpoint with a complete packet for we three judges and others did a summary. They were all impressive, and as usual there were a few very poised and comfortable with speaking in public. Two families were sent to Cancun, one to Orlando, one to Puerto Rico, one to Dominican Republic, one to Toronto, and the final presentation split the trip to Costa Rico and Cartagena.  Seven presentation with questions from each judge did make for a packed stretch of a little more than three hours, but like I said, a good experience in that it was nice to see the students engaged. Oh, and one of the other judges and I did go for wine after.