Contact Us

If anyone wants to call us here are the numbers.
Larry's mobile: +371 26100603
Rhonda's mobile: +371 28378962

Another way, and it is free, is to download a service called Skype. It is located at Skype.com You can call anyone who has a skype account for free. Our skype contact is: LarryJJM or RhondaMF. It is simple and easy.

Hope to hear from you soon.

New Home in Jurmala

This is a picture of our new house. We will be moving to Jurmala in August. This home has three bedrooms so visitors are always welcome.

Buster and Frankin Go Swimming

Here are the boys and Rhonda playing in the Bay of Riga. Dogs are not allowed on the beach in Jurmala but since when did Rhonda ever follow the rules?

StrongWOMAN

My daughter Hayley...Is she in the Omaha strongman contest on Sunday in Omaha, NE OR add your own caption...

Here comes the STORK

These are pictures of nesting storks. As you can see the nest is very large. Many of the nests are located on electricity poles. Stork tastes a little like chicken.

Bauska Castle

This castle was built in 1443. It has been occupied by the Latvians, Russians, and Swedes. They are curently trying to restore the castle. During the Soviet occupation many of the bricks were taken by the locals to build their own homes.

These are the line dancers peforming at the Bauska Country Festival. They actually sang Johnny Cash in English.

It ain't no butter cow

We found this cow in Bauska. He was at the annual country festival.

Another Great Iowan in Latvia

Here is US Ambassador Chuck Larson giving his 4th of July speech. He is the ambassador to Latvia and an Iowan.

Can You Believe This????

The Ambassador of Austria Mrs Hermine Poppeller

requests the pleasure of the company of

Dr. Rhonda Fisher and Dr. Larry Molacek
at an informal Dinner on

Wednesday, 9 July at 7.00 p.m.

Austrian Residence, RSVP
Balasta dambis 60A, Kipsala

Song and Dance Festival

This is part of the parade that took place on Sunday July 6, 2008. This event takes place every five years in Latvia. Each community has particpants in the parade and the festival lasts a week. There were 39,000 people marching and the parade lasted for five hours.

Here are more pictures of Munich. The first picture is the Olympic Park.

Munich Center

Until the Munich Olympics in 1972 most of Munich was still in bad shape from WWII. Mos of the buildings were destroyed and the rubble was all around. After 1972 many buildings have been rebuilt. Here is a picture of the city center.

Latvian Wedding

A Latvian tradition is to place a paddle lock on a bridge. This couple is doing that now. As you can see a lot of Latvians got married recently.

July 4th Celebration in Latvia

The US Embassy invited all US citizens to celebrate July 4th. Here is the cake they served. There were about 1,200 guests at the celebration.

Dachau Concentration Camp Ovens

These are the first two ovens in Dachau. To keep up the bodies of dead prisoners several more ovens were constructed.

Dachau Concentration Camp

This is the entrance to Dachau. It was the first concentration camp that Hitler built. As you go through the entrance it says "work will set you free". Over 200,000 prisoners were registered at Dachau from 1933-45.

Hitler's Balcony

Munich was where it all started for Hitler. He gave his first big speech in a Munich beer hall, signed the Munich Agreement with Neville Chamberlin promising not to invade additional countries and built this office building with square rather than round toilet seats. (No pictures of the toilet but trust me they were square.) This is the balcony of his office. The building is now used as a music school.

International Baccalaureate Training

Rhonda and I are attending a week long training on the PYP International Baccalaureate Program. PYP stands for Primary Years Program. They also have developed programs for the middle years and high school (diploma program). The workshop is being held in Munich, Germany.

Taken from the IB website:
The International Baccalaureate was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968 as a non-profit educational foundation.

A group of talented, forward thinking teachers at the International School of Geneva, with assistance from several other international schools, created the IB Diploma Programme. What started life as a single programme for internationally mobile students preparing for university, has today grown into three programmes for students aged 3-19. The programme in the early days consisted of a common pre-university curriculum and a common set of external examinations for students in schools throughout the world, seeking to provide students with a truly international education. Although the first IB schools were predominantly private international schools, they included a very small number of private national institutions and schools belonging to state education departments. This has changed over the years and today over half of all IB World Schools (authorized to offer one or more of our programmes), are state schools.

Carrying forward the ideals and dreams of the IB founders, the organisation exists to provide high quality education for a better world, as expressed in our mission statement.

IB Programmes continue to encourage this international mindedness in students and educators through the IB learner profile; a set of values that represent our mission and principles.