Life is Good!

The long awaited unschooling conference is here! I can't even begin to express how happy I was when Ron said he wanted to come. I am hoping he will get to meet other dads who have had successful homeschooling experiences and see how wonderful the older kids are. We got off to a pretty good start today I think....

We managed to get on the road around 9, which is miraculous for us haha. I actually had almost everything packed the night before, so the morning went pretty smoothly. We had planned to stop and see the Tulip Festival, but somehow neither of us noticed when we got to Woodburn! I swear we would lose our heads if they weren't attached! It was all good, though, because we got to the hotel nice and early and lucked out that they let us check in early. One of the first things I noticed were all the cool painted cars in the parking lot. They had slogans on them like, "School's Out! Unschooling is In!" Fun, fun. Should have taken some pictures. :(

I guess it turned out well because there was a volunteering meeting planned in the afternoon which it was good to make it to. I also got a chance to set up my idea for a Mother's Helper bulletin board where people could exchange information. Funny enough, I ended up getting called by the same person I had heard from on MDC earlier. We never managed to hook up in Portland, but it looks like her daughter is going to be able to help us out this weekend.

We decided to have lunch at the hotel since the Friday special was a salmon caesar salad. Um, not such a good idea as it turned out. I ate some of the smaller pieces of salmon, and it was very tasty, but I noticed when I got to the bigger pieces, the inside was totally raw! Like literally still cold. And no, it wasn't a seared type of salad! Somehow I don't think they are serving sushi quality fish here, so I didn't think it was wise to eat it. We showed the waitress, and she offered to bring me another piece of fish. They did handle it quite well, as they did not charge us for the salad AND brought me a big old piece of salmon. Granted, the second one was overcooked LOL, but it was still edible.

Anyway, I am supposed to be writing about the conference! We got to take in a little of the afternoon talks. The setup is great as there is a toddler playroom right off the area where all the main presentations are. There is also a raffle going on, and somebody knitted this amazing scarf:

So the thing to understand is that you cannot see that pattern at all unless you look down the scarf with your eyes right next to it! It is a total trip!

For dinner, I really wanted to check out The Sunnyside Up Cafe, which is owned by the conference planner. I'm glad we did, because there were a bunch of people playing cool oldtimey music. Corvallis is really cute. Even the trashcans are cute.

When we got back it was pretty much time to hang out in the hotel room. Orion had not had a nap and I have to be down at the registration table at the horrible hour of 9am! So it is time to get some sleep and be up in time to get some grub at the free breakfast buffet before heading off to do my volunteer duties! It seems totally weird to be hanging out in the hotel room and have the baby be asleep so early and not be able to do much of anything. I think I will just do some reading before getting some sleep.

I do want to say I feel like Ron is already feeling we have made a good decision to unschool just by being here and talking to some of the other parents. I am so glad we came!

ETA: I am thrilled to have gotten some pictures another mom took. I am pretty sure this activity took place on Friday. It is so cool to see Orion was participating in it while hanging out with Paloma.