Family-Centered Learning Conference 2008 - My Photo Journal

July 27th, 2008 · 16 Comments

My daughter, Hope, and I returned last night from a whirl-wind trip to beautiful Lancaster, Pennsylvania and the F-C Learning Conference.   We headed out Friday morning and arrived at our hotel about three hours before the Family Picnic at a local park.  After taking a quick tour of the area, we arrived about 10 minutes early at the park.  For those of you that know me in real life, you know that I am an early bird.  What a thrill it was to have Michele Quigley, the organizer of this extraordinary conference, pull up in her SUV and give me a great big hug!!!  Meeting Michele after getting to “know” her on-line was such a thrill!!!

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Michele and I

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Maggie Quigley blowing bubbles - it was quite a test of my poor photographic skills to finally capture a bubble on film 

Other thrills included meeting some of the bloggers that I “know” through their blogs.  However, I came home and added some new blogs to my Bloglines subscriptions after having met those bloggers in person.   Here are some more picnic pictures:

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Margaret (Minnesota mom) and Maryellen (Tales from the Bonny Blue House)

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Michele and Tim Quigley

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Michele with a beautiful St. Anne’s chaplet (made by Kimberlee of Beads of Mercy), given to her by Alice Gunther (Cottage Blessings)

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Margaret, Karen Edmisten (Karen Edmisten), Meredith (Sweetness and Light), and Diane (Journey of a Mother’s Heart)

The next morning we arrived early (of course!!!) at the Liberty Place Conference Center for an inspiring day of talks.  The day just flew by as I participated in the opening mass, listened to so much wisdom, shopped at the vendor tables, visited with old and new friends, and of course ATE!!! 

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Maryellen (one of the wonderful speakers) with her very best friend, Chris Volpe (and my friend IRL)

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Alice Gunther (Cottage Blessings and featured speaker), Meredith (another of the gifted speakers) , and Kimberlee (Pondered in My Heart and Beads of Mercy)

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Hope and I

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Sweet Erica Sanchez from CA - not a blogger YET!!!

So at 8 p.m. we hit the road to head back to Long Island.  We arrived home at midnight after experiencing heavy traffic in NYC, stopping at a most hideous gas station bathroom (I didn’t take a picture of that!!! Ugh!!!), and listening to the Mets lose a heart-breaking game in 14 innings.  But most of all, Hope and I arrived home happy that we had gone and looking forward to our next trip to PA to visit the Quigleys and next year’s Family-Centered Learning Conference (hint, hint, Michele!!! ;)).

Categories: Conferences · Family · Friends · Travel

16 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Kimberlee // Jul 27, 2008 at 11:35 pm

    What great photos! You really captured a lot of the weekend in pictures. It was so nice to meet you and your lovely daughter!

  • 2 Jamie // Jul 28, 2008 at 6:39 am

    Ohh I am so jealous!! I would have loved to go to that conference! Were there vendors there? My husband’s company, Arx Publishing, went to Catholic Family Expo to vend this weekend instead. I just discovered Cottage Blessings and I would have LOVED to meet Alice Gunther!!

    Jamie

  • 3 Alice Gunther // Jul 28, 2008 at 6:41 am

    What beautiful photos!!!!

    It was great seeing you and Hope! See you when we get home!

  • 4 Diane // Jul 28, 2008 at 7:18 am

    What a beautiful recap of a beautiful weekend, Heather! I really enjoyed meeting you and Hope and somehow felt as if I had already known you for a thousand years. God bless you.

  • 5 Erica // Jul 28, 2008 at 8:56 am

    Oh my goodness! I didn’t expect to see that photo of myself there at the end! Eating no less. :) I’d eat with you any day, Heather.

    Like Diane said, I feel like I’ve known you forever, an instant connection. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing each other again someday either on your coast or mine. I so wish I would have been able to bring my Emily to meet your sweet Hope.

    It was a pleasure meeting you and Hope. God bless!

  • 6 Margaret in Minnesota // Jul 28, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    It was a real treat to meet you too, Heather!

  • 7 Heather // Jul 28, 2008 at 9:26 pm

    Heather, it was so nice to meet you this weekend. Glad to hear you had a safe trip home.

  • 8 Meredith // Jul 28, 2008 at 11:59 pm

    Thank you sweet lady, it was awesome meeting you and your darling daughter, West coast next year :)

  • 9 Michele Quigley // Jul 29, 2008 at 11:42 pm

    Heather,

    It was SO great to meet you. Come back and visit anytime!!!

  • 10 Cay G. // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:26 am

    What lovely pictures and looks like so much fun too. :) Thank you for sharing, Heather.

  • 11 amy // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:32 am

    It was great to meet you Heather!

  • 12 michelle waters // Jul 30, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Heather it was nice to meet you. I wish I had more time to get to know you. I got home and looked up Doodles Spaces by mistake, so I’m glad you visited me online so I could find you!

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  • 14 Karen Edmisten // Sep 18, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    Well, I appear to be two months late with this comment, but I could have sworn I left one here when I first came to look at all these great pictures! It must have gotten lost in cyberspace (or I clicked away pre-verification, or something!) I’m finally finishing blogging about our summer trip, and am stopping back to reminisce. :-) It was such fun to meet you and all the other wonderful women at the conference, as well as your beautiful Hope. God bless!

  • 15 createmo // Nov 2, 2008 at 11:00 am

    Thank you for your website :-)

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