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!!!
Michele and I
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:
Margaret (Minnesota mom) and Maryellen (Tales from the Bonny Blue House)
Michele and Tim Quigley
Michele with a beautiful St. Anne’s chaplet (made by Kimberlee of Beads of Mercy), given to her by Alice Gunther (Cottage Blessings)
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!!!
Maryellen (one of the wonderful speakers) with her very best friend, Chris Volpe (and my friend IRL)
Alice Gunther (Cottage Blessings and featured speaker), Meredith (another of the gifted speakers) , and Kimberlee (Pondered in My Heart and Beads of Mercy)
Hope and I
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!!! ;)).
