Originally, we had planned on leaving Ann at home with Tom, but due to a big test getting scheduled half-way through the trip and other pressing research/assignments, we decided it would be best for me to take Ann instead. Since she's under 2, I was able to take her along on the plane as a lap child. We are so grateful Rebekah and Grant were willing to watch Ann for me during the day while I was gone.
My sister Janelle was there for the convention as well (she's in grad school right now to become a speech pathologist), so it was great to have her there with me. Since we weren't staying at a hotel right across from the Georgia World Congress Center, we took the public transit trains into Atlanta. As a result, we had to get up pretty early. We left Rebekah's place around 6am on our first day. So this is me all excited and ready to go!!
Sitting in a big ballroom waiting for the opening ceremony to start! The keynote speaker was Maya Angelou, which was pretty awesome. Dr. Angelou is 84 years old now, and came out on the stage in a wheelchair (and wearing sunglasses, which she said were because she'd recently had some procedures done on her eyes). She spoke about being a rainbow in some else's cloud. It was very inspiring to listen to her.
This was near the main doors in the convention center. Note the pretty awesome "Super Duper" bag (yes, Super Duper is the name of a company that sells products for therapy...they were giving away those bags like candy in the Exhibit hall. I think just about everyone had one at some point during the 3 day convention).
Janelle and I in front of the sign.
Ready for day 2!!
All by myself on day 3. Janelle only stayed for the first two days before flying down to Houston to attend my nephew's baptism and to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and sister Vanessa's family. I also took this picture to show how dark all of the classrooms were. Most of the convention center was underground and not very well lit, in my opinion.
Ann was a trooper through the whole trip. She handled being away from me most of the day (three days in a row) quite well. This was in the evening one night soon before her bath, and she'd already pulled out her hair ties (hence the faux-hawk). She apparently wanted to wear her little cousin's bib too, so Rebekah put it on her.
Playing with her cousin! She liked to take his burp clothes and help wipe his face.
So cute!
So I got to hold this little cutie for about 5 minutes total the whole time I was there. He was either eating, being put to sleep, or I was taking care of Ann. The one time I did hold him, after a couple minutes Ann decided she was jealous and wanted me to hold her as well. I held them both for a bit before handing handing the baby back to Grant. Ann then wanted down, as if to say "my work here is done..."
This is Ann and I on our last flight back to Minnesota on Sunday. She did amazingly well on all of our flights. I feel incredibly blessed about how the whole trip went. I am so glad I got to go (and grateful for Tom for encouraging me to go).
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