Yale and my super smart cousin Ryan

Hats off to my brainiac cousin Ryan Carlisle who graduated from Yale University earlier this year with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering. That is no easy feat. He was nice enough to let me and my parents attend his commencement ceremonies. Thanks cuz. We had a blast!

Chairs are all set up and ready for commencement.

The cousins minus Kirby.

One of the residential colleges, aka dorms. Think Harry Potter. Griffendor, Slitherin, etc. Same concept. Ryan's was called Ezra Stiles.

Secret garden leading to the headmaster's door.

Church building on campus

Just an example of one of the masterpieces on the side of a building. You could find something unique and random on most any building at Yale. The architecture is intriguing.

Engineering Building + 4 engineers = dorky picture

One of the many ceremonies we attended for Ryan. This one was for his residential college.

YALE ice sculpture at one of the many receptions we attended.

Way to go Ryan! You're smarter than us all.

Rob and I are so proud.

Amazing Library

Entry hall of the library. Not too shabby.

A huge quiet study room in the library. The shelves were made of wood with intricate carvings.

This hallway in the library had the coolest ceiling.

GILMORE! If you know me at all, you know that I never missed an episode of Gilmore Girls back in the day. Rory went to Yale in the show so I was in hog heaven walking around the same campus she walked on. I am nerd.

Neato door at the library. Could have been in Harry Potter.

Me and Ryan in the garden at the library.

Dad in the library testing out an old moving desk. Is that what you call it?

Our Trip to Panamaaaaaa

I am way behind on blogging. If there are any fans out there, which I'm not sure if there are or not, I'm sorry for the wait.

Jacob and I took a trip to Panama City, Panama (not Florida) to see his sister Mindy, her husband David and their son Griffin. We had such a great time. It really was one of the best vacations I've ever been on. David and Mindy are teaching at an American school in Panama for 2 years. They've been there for 1 year already so we wanted to go see them before they headed back to the states.
They had pretty much the whole week planned out for us with fun stuff to do. They were amazing hosts. We started off by driving to a volcanic valley 2 hours from the city called El Valle. Here's some info on it. We ate at a small restaurant that was delish before we headed to the jungle to zipline.
None of us had ever been on a zipline before, but I think I speak for all of us when I say that it was one of the coolest experiences. We ziplined over a waterfall and got to stop in the middle of the line to take in the beauty.
After El Valle, we drove to a beach resort called Decameron. David and Mindy's friends own a timeshare there so we stayed the night. It was right on a golf course and had a great view when there was lightning in the distance.Like any good resort, there were pools...
beaches...
and lizards.

We enjoyed ourselves. :)
Of course you can't go to Panama without going to the Panama Canal. We took a partial canal transit tour, which meant that we sailed through the two sets of locks that are on the south side. We love each other. :)
The guy on the right is the awesome dude that kept his shirt off nearly the entire trip. Only one on the boat with his shirt off. Classy.
We visited during Panama's "wet season", so naturally it rained nearly every day. I think that's the only reason that dude put his shirt back on.

This is one set of locks closing after we got in. Going down...and heading out.

A little sailboat went through the locks with us as well as a huge ship.

We went to Casco Viejo after the canal transit to inquire about a music festival we had heard about. We found the music festival, but they didn't have any power so it was delayed. Then the storm rolled in. Do you see the storm hovering over downtown? I was trying to book it outta there before being struck by lightning, but David was very content snapping pictures like this one.
This is downtown Panama City and it's one of my favorite pictures from the trip.
This is favorite #2 taken in Casco Viejo.

It's such a pain uploading pictures with blogger so I'm done for now. You can see all of the pictures Jacob took on my facebook page.

Tune in for the next Helber adventure!!!