Whirlwind Weekend

 On Sunday Jason and I returned from a whirlwind trip to South Carolina for the first Teach Them Diligently Convention (which was amazing, tiring, and busy).  Several other homeschooling families from our area went and it was so neat running into everyone at the convention.  We left on Wednesday and our day of departure started off with a big disappointment when we found out that one of our very favorite homeschooling families couldn't make it because they had come down with the stomach flu, and I must have told Jason a half dozen times how bummed I was (and I know they were too).

So that morning we packed everyone (and everything) up and headed down to my mom's after lunch to drop the kids off for an extended visit, and then Jason and I headed out on the long drive south.  We drove about half way on Wednesday, spent the night in Virginia, and made the second half of the drive on Thursday morning arriving in Spartanburg, SC around 1pm. 

We picked up our convention registration packet, had lunch, and checked into our hotel in preparation for the start of the convention at 5pm.  We arrived at the convention early to get a good seat for the kick off keynote speaker Ken Ham Founder and President/CEO of Answers In Genesis and the Creation Museum (if you haven't visited the Creation Museum you really must go).  The second keynote presentation of the night was by Doug Phillips President/Founder of Vision Forum, followed by another presentation by Ken Ham.

The convention continued all day Friday and Saturday and all of the keynote presentations were great and we were busy non-stop. The second and third days of the convention featured keynote speaker Voddie Baucham, and Saturday morning Jason attended the men's breakfast session with him. The entire trip was constant busyness and we were on the go non-stop, so we didn't really have any down time to relax and enjoy our kid free trip. (It was worth it though.)

The convention officially ended at 6pm on Saturday night, but we were so tired and had a such a long drive ahead of us that we left around 3pm and skipped the last session with Voddie Baucham (which I am kicking myself a little for now). We had originally planned to drive half way and spend  the night, but we ended up driving straight through and arrived at my mom's at midnight.

My mom hadn't told the kids we were coming home a little early, so in the morning we surprised them and they were so cute. This was the longest we had been away from them and the farthest away, and we knew from my mom's reports that they'd missed us. They had a great time while we were away, but were so glad to have us back that Sissy cried and Bubba teared up a little. Dittle, of course, had a totally different and bizarre reaction, and pouted and acted mad for a good 15 minutes (I'm still not sure why) before coming around.

All in all,  it was a great trip and although the convention was wonderful, I don't think we will make the trip to SC every year.