Friday, March 5, 2010

Another day in New Orleans

Today was the launch of 60 in 60 a brand new feature at the convention. They had eight panelists who each had a topic to speak on from team-building to the proper way to get the kids ready for an educational assembly to the legal aspects of being an activities director.

Some of my favorite people were on this panel: Tyler who focused on story-telling,

Bill who talked about what it's like to be the spouse of an activities director-- he was so totally spot on when he talked about his "sex monkey" Cindy and all the challenges of being married to an activity director.

Mike Smith was the moderator and a panelist. He is always the opening night speaker at CADA Camp-- for every session-- so we see lots of Mike. Ron even "stole" the prayer that Mike wrote for his son to use with Libs every night before bed.

Later in the day Charley acted as Louis Armstrong for the third general session. He was awesome!!

As part of the festivities they had a Mardi Gras parade complete with floats, confetti, and a king and queen.

Probably the most touching speaker we had was Darrell Scott. His daughter Rachel Scott was one of the first children shot at Columbine High School. A few months before her death she wrote an essay challenging people to start a chain reaction of kindness because you never know how far it will go! Her story was heart-breaking and it brought back so many memories of my senior year at DU. I very clearly remember the day that we heard about the tragedy. Many of my friends knew folks who attended Columbine so we all huddled together to comfort each other. I hope that you check out their website because I would like to keep her message going!

To transition from the very heavy back into the light-hearted all of the hosts sang "Wonderful World."

Have I mentioned that there was so much confetti at the convention that I would find it later in my hair, my shoes, my clothes.... everywhere!!!

Our CADA tradition is to steal away with Tyler for a snack. In Reno our restaurant of choice is Johnny Rockets. I just love our visits with Tyler-- he's such a dear!

A quick trip upstairs to change....

and then back downstairs in our masquerade attire to take some photos of the dinner dance.

The big surprise of the night was presenting the Principal of Greater Gentilly High School in New Orleans with...

a $20,000 check for her school!! It was so nice to give back to a school who really needs help just by giving up dessert for the night.

After dinner it was time to get the party started... Matt was ready to go!!!!

It was quite a challenge to take good photos and dance at the same time. Finally we put the cameras away and just boogied down!!!! What a fun night-- we never dance :)

Meanwhile, Libi was having lots of carpet picnics with Elmo.

Looks like fun!!!!

Jammy took Libs to work with her this morning. When we asked her what she did at Jammy's work she proudly said, "I was quiet!!" No easy feat for this chatty Cathy!

We Skyped with everyone twice. The first time earlier in the week was too much for me to bare as Libi asked when we were coming home. This time she was just chatting about all of the fun she was having and she enjoyed seeing all of the swag we were bringing home for her!

We left little presents for Libi to open each day we were gone.

It was a fun distraction for her and it made for some cute pictures for us!

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