McKellop Girls Go International

It will be an exciting second half of the the summer for Leah and Mairi.

Leah leaves in about 3 weeks for Costa Rica with her friend Elly (from our long term family friends down the street). They will be working on a small rural farm through the WWOOFs organization (World Wide Organization of Organic Farmers, http://www.argos.net.mx/wwoofcr/). They will work in exchange for room and board. Sounds awesome!

Mairi leaves mid-July for Linz, Austria. She will be competing at the Junior World Rowing Championship in a double with her partner, Emily Eiffert of Rochester, NY. They qualified for the US Junior National Rowing Team earlier this week. What an amazing opportunity!

Hope all are well. Sue

City of dreams

Jim and Art are just back from a long weekend in LaLa Land. We stayed at the legendary Millennium Biltmore Hotel Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills Hotel where Marilyn Monroe died, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel right across from Grauman's Chinese Theatre on the famous boulevard of stars. As you can expect knowing us, it was a museum marathon, including the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Villa plus The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, the Norton Simon Museum, LACMA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and others. Along the way we visited numerous locations used for films and TV shows, such as the exterior for Jerry Seinfield’s apartment and the House on Haunted Hill (1959). The high point had to be dinner at the legendary Pink’s—well worth the hour wait and a must do on your next itinerary. All in all a fine time was had by all.

Junior Nationals 2008

Back from Ohio. GMS had a very successful regatta with two silver metals and two eighth places finishes. Nice accomplishment for a small team in a very, very competitive regatta this year. Every race was thrilling. Mairi's quad came in eighth overall. After racing 2K's, the spread between 4th and 8th place was .7 of a second. A few of the teams races were so close they required a photo finish. Things didn't go so well for her singles event. She hit a buoy with her oar in one of the heats and the boat flipped so naturally she had to scratch. Very tough break as this is her favorite event. Oh well...looks like she still has a good chance of trying out for Junior National team in a double with a girl from another team some time next week. Keep your fingers crossed! -Sue