One of the highlights of last week was visiting the Grade Four classes at Bishop Abraham School here in St. John’s. It was my second visit of the school year and great fun. They followed along daily on my latest Nepal expedition. I had hoped to show pictures of Nepal but alas, the tech gods were playing tricks, so I mostly told stories and took questions from the students. After the questions, the students gave a recitation of what “TA” stands for and I was deeply touched by the list…

TA is ……….

1. Terrific and Awesome

2. Travel Addicted

3. Team Accomplished

4. A True Adventurer

5. Talks about her accomplishments

6. Terrific Author

7. Trains a lot for her climbs

8. Trained Athlete

9. Uses the Team Approach

10. Had a Thrill in Antarctica

11. Takes a lot of pictures

12. Task Achiever

13. Technological Academic

14. Hope she doesn’t Tumble into an Abyss

15. Totally Awesome!!

As each child stood and read her/his item, I grinned ear to ear and had to demonstrate that I was listening by picking out the “T” and the “A” words. After the recitation, I was presented with some gifts: a stained glass dragonfly, some Pringles, and a book of pictures each class had drawn. All were perfect! We had seen many dragon flies on the glacier as we climbed Mera Peak, I craved (but never caved to having) Pringles on the entire trek, and I so, so, so love children’s art. Here is the picture I’ve currently chosen at my cover photo on Facebook.

It reminds me that life is a series of peaks and valleys and we need to spend time in each…and that there are always more mountains to climb (both figuratively and literally). So many thanks to Mrs. Courage and Mr. Constantine and their students for their wonderful gifts and appreciation. I loved having them along as co-explorers on the expedition and I look forward to sharing future trips along with them again.