Heading down the mountain

Ah, the Monday after an exciting(AO at home) retreat weekend. It's always part - "whew, I'm exhausted and ready for our schedule to return to normal". And part "oh sad, it's over." Yesterday was no exception.

I was a bit worried about how my body would handle the trip. I tend to get motion sickness at the best of times but apparently, zofran helps with that too because that part was fine. And I did my best to balance out the time I spent sitting in the car - the first day the kids and I spent 2 hours at a park walking around before the drive and once we got to day 1's destination, we walked around Ikea (it was for my health! Not the cute teal cart I got out of the it. No, certainly not).

The next day we spent a few hours at the aquarium. Nature study + indoor in July + lots of walking = yay! But between sitting at the conference and sitting in the car, and letting myself get dehydrated and paying for it with lots of braxton hicks contractions, by Sunday afternoon, my body was done. I actually fell asleep around 8pm. Craig had to wake me up for my shot and then I went right back to sleep.

And the kids were feeling the effects of super fun weekend too. In addition to the aquarium with me, they got to go exploring with dad while I was "retreating" so they - swam in a hotel pool, toured a dairy factory and saw a calf being born, made several stops at a playground, ate ice cream, visited a farmer's market and a nature center and then we all went to a wolf park for howl night where we both howled and were howled at. So basically, they suffered for my sake.

Okay, maybe not. But even if they had, I think it still might have been worth it. My basic feeling through much of the weekend can be summed up like this:

I got to listen to some incredible woman give talks and answer questions. Woman that I, against their own recommendation, consider homeschooling gurus, like Karen Glass, Cindy Rollins, and The Headmistress (and yes, I did talk to her about k-drama, I don't even care if that is shallow of me - I went there)...

Funny story, I was standing around the registration area with a couple of other forum ladies that I knew and we all spotted Cindy. But she was a last minute speaker and we hadn't heard she was coming yet so we were all trying to nonchalantly see if we read could her name tag or hear someone talk to her. We were pretty sure it was her but well, you just don't run in to Cindy Rollins every day. Finally, we saw someone else we knew talk to her and yes, it was her!

And hearing them speak would have been encouraging enough but I got to meet them and talk to them and they were all just as wonderful in person as you think they would be from reading their words. And then to meet-up with some of the woman on the forum whom I've been talking to and doing book studies with and being able to put real faces (and voices!) to those screen names. It was great.

I learned so much its hard to put into words but I do want to try and sum up my learnings - to give a short narration if you will. I've already started that post. But for now, it's time to get back in the daily grind of life. It's hard, but "luckily" Jonah has seen fit to be oh so very two this week and I've got no other option but to jump in with both feet. Wish me luck!