I have been very neglectful on my posting the past few months. In an effort to catch up I will give a brief summary of my travels in April, May and June:

April 7 - 10, 2008
A domestic, U.S. trip for a change:

Orlando, FL: FranklinCovey Certification event and a visit to English Estates Elementary school. SRC was given a warm and enthusiastic welcome by about 200 elementary students. Clapping and shouts of welcome were followed by shouts of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It was a very touching moment.

Williamsburg, KY: SRC spoke to faculty and Staff at the University of the Cumberlands. It was fantastic! The school campus is beautiful; brick buildings, green and lush landscapes. This was a highlight for me. To open the event the school had invited a Scottish Bagpipe band to perform. It was amazing! They also had vocal numbers which were very moving.

Lansing, MI: Greatness Summit. The highlight of this event was meeting Jon Schmidt. He is a well known (at least in Utah) pianist and I love his music. He composed the song "Waterfall: which is the piano piece used in the FranklinCovey film "Creating Greatness".

Portland, OR: Along with a great event I was able to see Julie Hillyard, a great friend and mentor to me in my job. It was so fun to see her and have a chance to catch up.

April 25, 2008
Texas A&M, Mays Business School

This was a fun event. SRC did a fantastic job and really hit a home run with the group.

May 7, 2008
Phoenix, AZ Greatness Summit for the FranklinCovey Western Region

This was a fun event for me...I was able to see some of my friends and colleagues that I don't see very often. SRC was fantastic!

May 13-15, 2008
London, the Netherlands and...Phoenix? Strange combination!

London: well attended event. If I remember correctly we flew in late and scurried back to the airport right at the conclusion of the event. No time to even figure out where I was in London. I do remember the bed in the hotel room: twin bed, very narrow and the duvet was short.

Zeist, Holland (The Netherlands): This event took place in a very charming town called Zeist. SRC and I arrived early enough that there was still daylight left in the day. We walked up and down the city street and enjoyed the quiet and pleasant weather. We passed a city part nestled in some trees that had a path around and through it. I took advantage of this path and ran a few laps. It felt good to get up and move! The event was great! SRC did a terrific job.

Phoenix, AZ: you may be asking why in the world would we add a domestic event to the end of an international trip. The way these events worked out we actually added the international legs to the already booked event in Phoenix. SRC spoke at a lecture series for the Mayo Clinic. It was a superb event.

May 22, 2008
Memphis, TN
Barret School of Banking

Remind me to not visit Memphis again in May or after a rain storm. It was so hot and sticky you could not stand being outside for more than 2 minutes and that was stretching it. This was a great event. The audience was so enthusiastic and intent on learning.

May 26 - June 4, 2008
Australia - Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Brisbane
South Africa - Johannesburg, Cape Town
Botswana - Gaberone

This was a trip to end all trips. I think SRC were not quite recovered from all of the other trips and that is why this one was so hard. We traveled a lot of sky miles.
Our flight to Sydney was quite eventful. Not really eventful but an event for me nonetheless. Prior to leaving on this trip I had been surfing the internet trying to find a show or something fun for SRC and I to do while in Australia. I saw on one website that Michael Buble would be in Australia at the same time that we would be. However, we missed each of his concert dates/times by a day. Well, because of that I thought it quite interesting that Michael Buble was on our flight to Sydney. It's true! It wasn't until the very end of the flight that I actually spoke to him but nevertheless, I spoke to him...shook his hand and exchanged words. It was fun!

Sydney: this was my second trip to Sydney in 2008. It was nice to fly in and recognize the airport. I sort of knew where I was going. We stayed at a hotel which was right across the street from Darling Harbor. One my first visit to Sydney SRC and I took a bus tour and I remember thinking that I would like to visit Darling Harbor the next time I was in Sydney. I actually had a chance to walk around the harbor and it was delightful. The weather was amazing and it was not a busy time. Below are some pictures.

We arrived in Sydney early in the morning. By the time we checked in at the hotel I only had time to drop my bags off in my room before I had to go to the event venue for my AV rehearsal. I was a pretty picture in jeans, t-shirt and a baseball hat. At least I was comfortable. I just hope I didn't smell like I had been traveling on a plane for 18 hours. This was a two day event so the morning of the 2nd day I showed up for my AV rehearsal showered and in my black suit. It was funny to see people's reactions when they saw that it was me. Quite a change from the baseball cap the day before.

Canberra: I celebrated my birthday in Canberra, which is the capital of Australia. That was something new I learned on this trip. The photos below are taken of the new parliament house. It was an amazing structure. We were in the government part of Canberra which was away from the shops, malls, etc. To celebrate my birthday, SRC and I asked our driver to take us to get some ice cream. He took us to a large mall that must have covered 4 maybe 5 city blocks. It was huge. The ice cream was very good - Happy Birthday to me!

Perth: Below are pictures of Perth taken from my hotel room. Let me tell you about this hotel room...it was more like a suite. Very big! The bed was so comfortable! The event in Perth was so cool! The event was sponsored by the Western Australian Primary Principals Association: an education association. The subject: the importance of teaching leadership skills in primary (elementary) schools, which is something SRC is very passionate about. I felt the day was a huge success.

Brisbane: Also a great event. I'm not sure I remember much about Brisbane. That's not true. We landed about two hours later than we thought we would; at 3:00 in the morning I nearly flew off the handle when the hotel front desk clerk gives me a hard time about not contacting them that we would be late. I can't say that the entire stay at that hotel was bad: the bed was comfortable, the hair dryer worked and the bathroom was clean but my interactions with the staff was less than fun!

I received exciting news from home early in the morning on the 31st. A new nephew! Ezra Dallis Boshard was born on May 30th. I could not wait to get home to see him. However, I still had 6 days left of the trip. Ugh!

June 1, 2008
Johannesburg, South Africa

It was great to be in South Africa again. The Community Event in Johannesburg was held at a university. The picture below is a picture of the front of the building...beautiful! The event was well attended and it was so great to look out into the audience and see so many families attending. We flew from Johannesburg to Cape Town that afternoon.

June 2
Cape Town, South Africa

The pictures below are of the hotel, fountain, etc. It was a beautiful place with a Casino attached. SRC and I went to the Casino...rather we went through the Casino to a large food court and had KFC for dinner. AS many of you know SRC wears some sort of hat when he is out and about. We walked into the Casino and almost immediately we were stopped by a security guard asking him to turn his hat around or take the hat off. He decided to turn the hat around and let me just say it was hysterical! We laughed and laughed!

The event in Cape Town was awesome! It was well attended and the audience was engaged and asked amazing questions. As you can see from the pictures below the AV booth was quite a distance from the main floor. It was cool to be up that high. During the first session we struggled with the audio for the videos. It was so frustrating but at the break (within 15 minutes) we have the problem fixed and the sound was impeccable the rest of the day. It can get very intense when something like this happened but luckily everyone was on the side of "let's get this fixed". The problem, a bad cable connection, was an easy fix once it was identified as the problem...we were very glad it had nothing major to do with the entire audio system. That would have been disastrous.

June 3
Johannesburg, South Africa

Another great event! Let me first tell you about the hotel. It was amazing--The Westcliff Hotel. It is built on the side of a mountain and was not one building but multiple buildings built on the side of this “cliff”. You could take the walking path to and from your building but you had better be ready to huff and puff. The easiest way is to take the shuttle…seriously in a suit, carrying a laptop bag and wearing high heels, you would have chosen the shuttle as well. The view from my room was amazing and if I had remembered to take a picture you would be able to see just how breathtaking it was.

The event, as I mentioned above was great. We spent the day at ABRA Bank…multiple sessions with multiple audiences. These pictures were taken at the afternoon session. This building was amazing. This open area was at least 5 stories high and very open. It was cool to look around and see people listening to SRC from the balconies.

June 4
Gaberone, Botswana

Beautiful! Botswana is one of the diamond capitols of the world. We flew into Gaberone at night so I really did not see much of the beauty until the next day and even then I only saw what I could see from the hotel and our drive back to the airport…very green and lush but also flat.

The event was very well attended and the participants were very excited to be there. The Vice President of the country came after lunch and gave a speech to the audience. His speech was inspiring and focused on the principals taught by SRC. It was very cool to be a part of that event. I did find it interesting that the Vice President’s handlers walked up to the podium before he did and placed a copy of his speech on the podium. I wondered if that was a matter of precaution or just part of the process. It was a bit intimidating to look around the room and realize that there his security detail was everywhere.

…Our final event of this trip and the beginning of our long journey home.

June 10 – June 14, 2008

My five days at home were wonderful…not very restful but it was great to sleep in my own bed, do laundry and not have to wear a suit.

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Wonderful experience! This was my first trip to Guatemala and I was impressed. I was reminded of El Salvador with the rolling hills and trees…trees everywhere. The two events were held at a university. The morning event was a public event and the afternoon was a community family event. Both were very well attended. I don’t think there was an empty seat in the house.

Mexico City, Mexico

This was a long day, with a lot of moving from one meeting to another and one event to another. The highlight was ending the day and taking a helicopter ride from the El Camino Real Hotel to the airport. It cut our travel time in half. The traffic in Mexico City is awful and would have taken us about 2+ hours. The helicopter was bright red and seemed to just float in the air…perhaps that was due to the fact that it was very windy. The wind seemed to either push us a long or lift and move the helicopter. Not scary but definitely unsettling at times.

Finally, the flight home…for a few hours and then on another plane to Calgary.

Banff, Canada

Although I was exhausted and so tired of traveling I found the strength to enjoy this trip. We had about a 75 minutes drive from Calgary to Banff for both directions we had daylight…which is a change from our normal travel. The drive could not have been any prettier. Banff reminded me of Tahoe, a bit of Park City, Estes Park (Colorado), and Sun Valley, ID. I could have stayed there for a few days to relax. That is for sure.

The event was great. All participants we so enthusiastic and SRC was right on with his message and engaging the audience. Overall it was a home run.