I often answered with, "Indiana Jones," when asked asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.
My family is very adventurous and our family vacations could be classified as expeditions. One weekend we might search for Anasazi cliff dwellings in southern Utah and a few weeks later we were off to Wyoming to hunt fossil fish on a windy cliff face. We traveled as much as we possibly could and by the time I was 10, I'd fallen in a medieval storm drain in Germany, explored backcountry geyser basins in Yellowstone and tagged along on a stegosaurus dig with the state paleontologist. My mom is an artist and my dad a geologist. Both the science and art rubbed off on me. I loved learning and reading but school never seemed to be the best place to learn when there was an entire world out there waiting...
Small wonder then that I ended up teaching! In the beginning I tried to encourage my students to learn about the wonders of the world around them. I taught elementary art and felt it was a great way to explore science. So many times, I would share a concept or experience and hear, "Miss, I saw that on TV!" I quickly realized that I'd been extremely fortunate to have parents that turned vacations into learning adventures. The lessons I learned on family vacations were vibrant and real and they stuck, as did a love of learning. The idea of learning through adventure on vacation eventually became the Imagination Vacation series.
In 2009, I illustrated Hummingbird Heaven for a family friend and on finishing, thought, "Wow, that was a lot of work - next time I better be the author too!" Imagination Vacation Yellowstone quickly followed. I now have six titles with other illustrated products on the way.
But summers, as always, are for adventure.