Live from the Foster Parent Conference!

Welcome! If you are a regular, thanks for stopping by again! Your time, attention, and support is appreciated :) If you are visiting for the first time, I want to personally say thanks and that I truly hope that you enjoy what you read!

I am currently attending the South Carolina Foster Parent Conference in Greenville, SC at the Embassy Suites. We arrived in town at 7am.. I had been under the presumption that we could check in early into our hotel rooms before the first class at 9. Well.. I was incorrect. And well, I am one of the few foster parents that did not ask someone to watch my children for the weekend. Hu Hu.. so yeah, you see my dilemma!? I thought I would just check them into the room and they could just chill in the pool or watch the tube. (I do have a responsible 17 year old, btw). Fortunately, Greenville has an awesome downtown atmosphere with a great park full of water and rocks and other boy-friendly stuff! So I dropped them off at the park.. told my teen that I owed him big time, and headed over here for my first session. Views at the Greenville Reedy Falls Park!:

Everyone here has been very friendly! :) Many of the foster parents are very cordial and thus far, willing to participate in the sessions. The hotel is very nice! (I did pay for it!) We have a roomy suite on the top floor with cable (2 tvs!) and wi-fi downstairs. I attended 3 sessions so far.. the first session was about habits for success. It was very informative and helpful. The presenter was great! The second, the one I am in right now (Shhh!), is about child advocacy. The title and description is very interesting.. and that is all. :\ It's not really that relevant or interesting. :P Sorry.. just being honest! *Now, adding to my blog later in the day, I have just gotten out of the 3rd session, all about play! My specialty! (I am a guy afterall!) It was an excellent session full of great insight and lots of laughter. I stayed up really late last night making the shirt I am wearing right now.. first time using the sharpie fabric markers.. it was fun!

If you saw my shirt today and it brought you here to my blog, please say so below! I sure hope someone did.. I want you to feel free to comment on anything you have read here or in previous posts or even tell me all about your foster experience! :) Later tonight or tomorrow night, I will upload my notes on each of my sessions. This is a big job with lots of typing and paying attention (hard for my ADD! lol) so please, check it out. It should be in the menu on the right ----> Although long, this day has been a good one. I love to learn more about something that means so much to me! On a side note, something awesome happened yesterday.... I saw my very first foster child for the first time since he left me 2 years ago! :) I was visiting another school, observing a teacher's math skills, and as I walked around my eyes fell on him. He looked at me. I looked at him. And then the light bulbed flashed on in his head and he showed the biggest grin across his face! We talked for a while about all the things we had done together.. I told him that I still had the pillow that he had brought with him when he came to me (with his name and tear stains..) and he told me that he still had the blanket I had given him. It was such a touching moment and it was so comforting to have seen it all come full circle! :-D Well, now it is time to crash for an hour before heading back to the conference for the "banquet".. whatever that may be. Sounds good! (Except the kids can't come.. !) More to come later, thanks for reading!!

Spring Break at the Beach :)

Good Evening- in fact, great evening, and a great day!

A week ago (or less), I decided that, despite my desire to stay home and clean, we are definitely going to do something with our spring break!! I went to get an oil change for my van and while there- I looked up the prices on hotels in Myrtle Beach. (We camped last year but it just got a little too hot to handle at night in a tent caked down in sand!) I looked up a bunch of places and they were outrageously priced and going up since many other people are on spring break too! I stumbled upon a website for Sea Crest Hotel and I entered all of our info into the registration form.. the hotel said it would only be.. $309 for us to stay from Monday through Thursday!!!!! I was like.. hm, well.. must be run down or something. They didn't have a lot of info on the hotel app site ( I was on my iTouch) and the lady on the phone asked us to bring our own linens... :\ so it sounded a little sketchy but it was in a general location I was familiar with so I went ahead and booked. ! (I do have boys after all, we can put up with anything!)

We got here on Monday at 1:30 (check-in wasn't until 3:30) and the room was ready... we went up to the fourth floor to our room and .. it was nice! Two double beds (with linens!!), a microwave and a big screen tv with cable.. bathroom was clean and it had wifi! So, we were set.. who cares about anything else when the beach is 100 yards away!? :) So that's just what we did- went straight to the beach! It is just beautiful.. the beach was clean, the sun was out but not beating down, and the ocean (although a little chilly) was a salty, refreshing relief! AND on the way back from the beach, (late at night), I looked next door to our hotel (right past our hotel gate) and there was a water park and a indoor pool. I didn't think anything of it....

Today, we discovered that both the waterpark, indoor pool, and.. the outdoor pool, outdoor lazy river, indoor lazy river, and karaoke cafe are ALL part of our hotel!!!!!!!! Can you believe it!? All of that. On the beach. In a nice room. For that awesome price! 

We spent the whole day today at the beach and the water park! We've made a lot of friends.. two families that came down from New Jersey together have hung out with us most of the day and they have been a delight.. we've done everything on the "beach- to do list". I buried my youngest kid in the sand and made him look like a sea turtle. My teenager and I played football on the beach. We all swam endlessly. We built an awesome sand castle. I look like a lobster. And now we're relaxing in the room. :) I couldn't ask for better!

-Other randomness that I forgot to fit in...
     We went to Broadway at the Beach, shopped at the Stupid Factory where I bought a magnetic mustache for my van. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe too. Mmmmmm
     We walked the beach and found a few sharks teeth.
     My teenager met a girl that he really seems to like.. too bad she'll be going back to Jersey soon!

Needless to say, it's been a blast and we're thoroughly enjoying ourselves. I don't know what else is on the list yet.. there's a local branch of our church here in Myrtle Beach so we may check that out tomorrow night. It's suppose to be cold(er) tomorrow so we may get out and do some things. We'll see!