About the Founders
Laurie Gabriel
A life-long learner, Laurie Gabriel's top priority is maintaining the curiosity that has fueled her adventures around the globe. She is always excited to meet new people from varying backgrounds, and she loves sharing her tourism experience with others. She is the author of the book Eyes of Wonder: How to Recapture Your Childlike Spirit, and is an award-winning public speaker.
Laurie has visited all 50 United States, plus 58 countries (and counting). She has organized over 200 international trips, many of them involving highly complex itineraries. She is happy arranging a 3-day relaxing jaunt to a tropical beach or a whirlwind tour of 11 countries in 18 days.
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Roberta Hamilton-Griggs
Roberta is an actor, singer, and director who has devoted her life to teaching, directing, and mentoring singers and actors of all ages. In addition to her extensive performance background, she has directed well over 100 plays, operas, and musicals and has been an adjunct voice faculty member for two major universities. Roberta finds great joy in collaborating with other professionals in the performing arts, and that enthusiasm overflows into her love of traveling and exploring other cultures. Roberta is the owner of Theater Source for Kids and is an active board member for the Historic Elitch Theatre, where she has fought to maintain the vibrance of this important landmark..
photo credit: Eric Weber
Our Story
Laurie and Roberta first met while majoring in music at The University of Denver. Their college stage experiences grew to include a jaunt touring the country as characters in a Disney review, as well as professional musical theater roles in Denver and beyond. They continued their mutual journeys in the field of education, both ending up teaching music at the secondary school level.
Roberta
Laurie
Like many of us, as the two friends got farther into "adulthood," they started noticing another similarity: they were both starting to lose their zest for life, and their passion for their jobs was waning. In the midst of balancing kids and careers, they realized they weren't able to take time to relax or pursue interests outside of their career and parenting duties.
Something had to change. They started looking for ways they could recapture all those positive qualities from their youth and do it in a way that didn't require a big time commitment. They wanted to share these perspective-changing techniques with other people who were feeling a loss of enthusiasm, and Eyes of Wonder was born.