The Great Homeschool Convention - Greenville - Part 1

So this past weekend me and hubby traveled to the great state of South Carolina to go to The Great Homeschool Convention. Upon arriving the very first thing that impressed me was that our hotel was walking distance to the convention center. The second was the convention center was surrounded by wonderful grassy areas that families were using for play time with their children and just time to chill out in the beautiful weather we were blessed with this weekend. We arrived on Friday after lunch. Of course the first thing any self respecting homeschool mom wants to do is hit the vendor hall, and it was the same for me. This conference did boast lots of vendors and some of them I haven't had the pleasure of seeing or meeting before this weekend. I had already told myself that I would not purchase anything until Saturday after taking much time and consideration over what I saw in the vendor booths. Two hours after arriving my first choice of speakers to go and hear was about to commence. I have home educated for almost 8 years and never had the pleasure of listening to Andrew Pudewa from IEW. Great speaker, great message! Next we headed back to the vendor hall to continue pursuing educational items and ooohhing and aahhhing over everything we saw. There wasn't actually a lot that I needed this year due to the many wonderful products I am blessed with through the TOS Review Crew. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to touch and look at everything in sight. By this time it was 5:30 and the next speaker I wanted to see was about to start. Again I Diana Waring is one of those speakers you hear so much about but I had never had the pleasure. The talk was to be about "Why We Went to War". The talk started with information about William the Conqueror and Napoleon and then about 10 minutes in to the talk the fire alarm went off. That meant every one had to leave and the fire department had to clear the entire convention center before letting anyone back in. We later found out that a door was propped open that shouldn't have been and that set off the alarm. Since it was so close to dinner time we decided to go check into our hotel and get some dinner. Of course anytime there is a Red Lobster with spitting distance it wins out. It was crowded but delicious. They have a special going on at the moment for a four course meal for 15.99. We were so full that a walk was called for around the outside of the convention center (remember we were a three minute walk away). We do not have cable TV at home so Food Network was on most of the night with a marathon of Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. I did actually make one purchase from the vendor hall on Friday, breaking my rule. In blogland one of the hot products is Maries Words created by a brother and sister team. We spoke with the brother and he was just a great guy with lots of enthusiasm of the product.

Looking forward to using this product next year for 9th grade. This was the first time me and hubby had gone away for the weekend by ourselves in ten years. Much needed time away. In a couple of days I will complete our weekend adventure with part two.