Tal, Riley, & Reagan are with me at the Florida Parent Educator Association conference in Orlando!
The boys tricked out the car for the trip. At least it smells good!
Why the old Nintendo 64? Well, those old cartridges were indestructible and the controllers didn’t need batteries. And that makes them a legendary kind of awesome.
We made a quick pit stop to the Lego Store on the way there. Did I mention I am sick and have no voice?
Tal says he isn’t sure what he made, but he loves it. I’m pretty sure he is stepping over into Creatorland. And the TS characters will be his buds for life.
View from our awesome room at the Gaylord Palms. All this is amazingly indoors! If you ever stay at a Gaylord, please listen to me and pay the extra for the Atrium view. I ended up working from the balcony a bit and totally enjoyed being a part of the action down there.
And yes, we’re actually working while we’re here. It’s the annual homeschool convention, with tons of classes (12 concurrent sessions each hour all day) and a ginormous exhibit hall full of curriculum and cool learning aids and chess tournaments and science projects. Very interesting stuff. Reagan just found out we’re in classes and not the pool on Friday. It wasn’t pretty.
My goodness this kid is funny. He actually organized the clothes into the drawers.
Cool slides. That bucket fills up every ten minutes or so and dumps on all the kids, which is pretty awesome.
Dance party! Also, a case for many homeschooling families to revisit their PE efforts.
Absolutely no idea what we’re seeing here.
End of the night. I’m sooooooooooo sick and they are beat.
Breakfast in the beautiful atrium.
Um…FPEA WHERE ARE YOU??? 45 minutes in line for the children’s program that we PRE-REGISTERED for AND STOOD IN LINE YESTERDAY to get checked in for.
Note: The Florida Aquarium came out to do this, and it was a cool plan. The Rs texted me and begged me to come get them. Apparently their leader was walking around on her iPhone the entire time and they were bored stiff. I came and rescued them.
Tal says the entire autism spectrum was represented here :). Lots of screaming, and nothing but concrete (seriously depressing) floors to make the sounds echo.
Did I mention there was cool stuff here? Several booths dedicated to Minecraft education. This one teaches Java with custom Minecraft mods. It’s a S’mores world below, with roasted marshmallows and goo. The guy here was printing robot parts on a 3D printer. Another teaches literature! One track has The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe reading combined with creating the Narnia world in Minecraft. Can’t wait to see what it is like.
Did I mention that I am cool and not a control freak anymore? Check this out: I let the Rs be a bit independent. Even let them run an errand and meet me at a bar hahahaha.
Lunch with my gingers. It was freezing inside and seemed like such a great idea to go outdoors. OMG HOT.
Who is taller? They seem to be inching up at the same rate lately. I think Reagan is actually a hair taller this week.
Silly selfies. 
Tal was busy running the country, Risk-style. I just got a text that we’re at DefCon 1. There’s a Korean War going on right now. Or is it a conflict hahahahaha.
The CentCom chief (reminds me of Clinician) is checking out the situation. It turns out that the rumors of weapons of mass destruction were false, but American losses were minimized. A great program by Generation Joshua.
We were completely exhausted, but I’m glad we finally did this conference all the way. I spent most of my session time in the filled-to-capacity classes with Kirk Martin of Celebrate Calm:
Meanwhile, back at home…the C’s were with Gramma & Daddy. I got some awesome pics:
Good Morning, Mommy!
This is the best. Gramma put on the same dress Caitlin wore for her birthday. She was looking around for the party and cake all day. Dress = party!
They absolutely hate to see my couch with pillows on it. 
Caitlin took over the laundry basket for her baby crib :).
Drum roll, please. Daddy took the Cs on a walk around the ‘hood! Love it :).
Stinkerpot 