live and learn-day one

on september 3rd we headed over the mountains and through the woods to the live and learn conference in black mountain, north carolina. we got there just minutes before we were supposed to volunteer for our scholarship reduced conference fee. we got our registration stuff and i got to meet the amazing pam genant...FINALLY. i got a little teary-eyed. in case you don't know how important she is to me, i'll just quickly say that she believed in me as an artist at a time a few years ago when i needed it most and commissioned some work from me. we got our bags and t-shirts and green meal bracelets and room keys. we thought we would have to go straight to work but they were serving lunch and so we ate first. we had no idea that we could've come earlier. ah well. after eating, scotty headed over to help beth set up for the raffle and passion basket auction. the boys had gone off to the gaming room and sadie stayed with me (well, up until she found sierra and they took off together).
i headed up to lee hall to help robyn set up the funshop tables. there wasn't a lot to do so i ran over to take our contributions to the raffle and auction to scotty. i came back up and there was some work for me to do but still not much and robyn released me...but i decided that i was still needed somewhere and sure enough just outside on the beautiful lee hall porch ren was manning the popcorn and slushy table all by herself, so i jumped in to help. i did that for awhile and that is where i first met a sweet little girl named fire...and so many more kids and parents with smiling faces wanting popcorn!! after that i went to bring some of our stuff into our room and to put mine and sadie's names into the fairy godchild bag. i told scotty i'd come help him when i was done. but then the kids wanted to go swimming so we did that first. then i helped scotty up until it was time for dinner. we all headed over to the dining room, i was sooo hungry and excited i don't think i even tasted anything. after dinner, we finished bringing stuff up to the room and got ready for the amy steinberg concert. there was still some more work to do with the raffle tables so we did that until the concert started (luckily it was in the same place).

as usual, amy was amazing!!! she is, after all, the unschooling crowd's mascot!! i danced over on the side, but these kids got right up front and got funky!!!

some fans...i think that's kyra (you can just see her hand), sadie in back, sierra and shelby

there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd when she sang wide sky life with help from some back up singers during a slideshow memorial for lisa heyman (roxanne and fire's mom...and larry's wife) who passed away in february this year.

me and amy!!!...that's her hand, not mine...LOL (we were going for sultry but i was just laughing too much)

after the concert we walked around a bit and then went over to where ren and her crew were staying and hung out for a little while. then we headed over to the lobby of the BRA and stayed up talking with our hometown friends and making new ones while the kids ran around who knows where. we finally headed off to our room a little before midnight. okay, i'm thinking this is all blurry and out of order...it was a wild first day and i can't truly remember exactly how it all went down. i just know the boys stayed out so late it made my head spin and i couldn't sleep and finally asked them to come in around 2 am. oh my. in the mean time, scotty, sadie and i hung out in the room planning what fun we would get into the next day...

i am in no way ready to even go into the deeper aspects of what we experienced during the conference, the beauty of all the amazing families, the simple joy of just BEING. i'll have to save that for my last day post.

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