day 2
day 3
days 4 and 5
alice was awesome enough to host a live and learn after party at her house, complete with a sleepover!! how cool is that?? everyone brought drinks and snacks and plenty of enthusiasm and conversation. kass had left the picnic earlier to get home before dark so wouldn't be joining us for the party, then she decided after all to drive back with pax and dave (it had been just her and jayd at the conference together). yeah!! so much went on, there was some limboing, card playing, ATC making and birthday wishing...and of course, eating, drinking and talking...and laughing...and crying. it was beautiful.
we stayed up super late and then woke up super early to the sounds of what seemed to be about 15 washing machines going in the attic. WTF? the roof people had come early! ah well, at least we were able to get an early start on the day. we hadn't planned to stay but when a trip into asheville was planned, we decided to go along. plus, lunch was needed before heading home. so we went in 2 cars...all together we had quite a crew, even though silas, jake, jared, and scott stayed behind with alice for a video game party. there was me, scotty, ren, samuel, sadie, sierra, rachel, george, and trevor...is that everyone?? i think so. we met up with rue, jon, dagny, and rowan at the woolworth walk art mall. we ate at the diner in there and then went on a walk-about around asheville. at some point (it is all very fuzzy really) we were joined by austin, taylor, and karina (who we will have the pleasure of hosting at our house starting tonight and through to the ARGH gathering). we wore ourselves out with walking around, shopping, high fiving and making up stuff about monet and got very hungry and decided we needed to get back to alice's house for some delicious little caesar's pizza before heading back home. speaking of those pizzas. i took the boxes home so alice wouldn't have to worry about taking them for recycling...well, i finally took them to recycling...YESTERDAY!! OMG. anyway. as ren said, the after party and asheville trip could be a book by itself...i don't have it in me today to write a book, so i hope the pictures will do. i thought i'd not make myself nuts putting pictures into blogger because it makes my head explode...so here are my final trip pix in slide form, enjoy!!
ALL my L&L pix:
sadie sat with me for awhile but she was so very very tired. she eventually went out to find sierra. she had her 2-way radio and we kept in touch that way until i knew she was with someone. i was having a hard time listening at this point and so i laid down on the chair. i found that i could listen so much better when i allowed myself to rest and keep my eyes closed rather than focusing so much on trying to keep sitting up and keeping my eyes open. it was refreshing to realize that i could do this and no one would really care. sadie started calling me and i realized i needed to go. we tracked each other down and decided to head for lunch. it was one of the more memorable lunches because it was a little on the mexican side. it was actually really good. one thing that happened pretty often during meal times was trays being dropped. whenever this happened, everyone in the dining hall would applaud. sometimes the person dropping their tray would smile. sometimes not. jess had the most fun dropping trays during the week. i think she was going for a record. but bless her heart, she was trying to get three trays filled and to a table all by herself. can we please get an applause now for jess!!! i was just so glad that we got to eat so many meals together. i was surprised we could even find one another. but somehow at mealtime, either jess or kass were right there. and sometimes we ALL got to eat together. ren was a little harder to find, she's a rock star ya know!!
i sat there and cried. and cried. let's see if i can even recount what brought me to tears. okay, she was talking about love. how you can't get all the types of love you need from one person. it touched a very deep place in me that i had felt before but never resolved. i realized years ago that i was asking scotty to love me in all the ways i needed love. mother love, father love, partner love, friend love, even self love. it was not fair to ask so much of him. we talked about it then and i realized in that moment that i was still doing it today. but why did it make me cry? it was just too deep. that need for so much love. that feeling of never having had it. knowing how little i gave to myself and knowing i had to learn how. sadie didn't know what to make of my crying. scotty smiled at her (my face was buried in his shoulder) and reassured her that i was okay, just feeling a lot of things from listening to the talk. i finally gathered myself up and was able to wipe away the tears and listen some more. by the end, i knew that i had surely learned a little bit more about myself and our marriage. i'm glad we decided to go. i was especially looking forward to the round table discussion afterward, i wanted to hear more of what she had to say. sadie was ready to go so scotty took her somewhere more fun. before he left he asked me to be sure and tell beth how much he enjoyed her talk. something i didn't get to do until much later, maybe the next day or the next. i can't remember. beth is really awesome. she was one of the first people scotty got to hang out with at the conference since his volunteer time on the very first day was spent helping her with the raffle. she told me later that day that he was a keeper. i knew that =)! (in fact, i was told that by several other moms). thanks beth...for everything.
it was so exciting to go into the second night of the talent show. i didn't know what to expect but i was ready to be entertained. the boys had heard so much about the first night that they decided to come to this one. it was nice to have them there beside me again. 
our friend jayden did some amazing somersaults. 
there was an inspiring drum circle 
and so many other great things i never took pictures of because i was too busy enjoying them. here's jess and tyler enjoying it all along with us.
samuel decided at the last minute before the show started that he really did want to be a part of it. we got the paper easel from the lobby and brought it over to washburn so he could do a drawing. 
he was a little nervous, but he got up there and just went at it. he started out with a pencil, wanting to show his exact process. 
but nobody could see it so he was handed a sharpie and he got a little more nervous about putting it down in ink instead of pencil...what, no erasing??? but he was awesome!! and it turned out great! mindy asked afterward if he would be willing to put it in the raffle. he even signed it. mindy's son, alex, ended up winning it. how cool is that?? 
these guys had a great time too during a YMCA performance! everybody now...Y..M...C...A!!
