Teachers Conference 2007

This past weekend marked the regular trip to teacher’s conference. Each week before Thanksgiving, Lutheran educators from the southwest mass together for fellowship, food, fun, and even to learn a thing or two. These events have been a highlight for me for years. It is always great to catch up with old friends and see all the new kiddos running about. This year was the first year with said kiddos for us. For the past few years Jill has served on the program committee for the conference so she is super busy. We did ourselves a favor this year and brought along our own babysitter. That was a stroke of genius in and of itself and it freed me up to do some catching up with old friends. I did do my daddy time in the pool with the girls and we took a few walks and looked at the ducks and flamingos too. Since I am not a classroom teacher now, the only thing I really do at the conference is host a happy hour in our suite (thanks LEC) and go to the banquet. This years theme was “Champions in Christ” and had a sports theme. This year instead of a dressed up affair it was jerseys and team shirts for all. This made for a rather rambunctious crowd. We all had rally towels did chants and cheers, and even chanted “Rachel…Rachel!!!” for the director of schools. Things started getting a bit wild when Jill announced to the banquet that in the centerpieces were temporary tattoos, along with big league chew, peanuts, and cracker-jacks. Pretty soon many people were tatted up. At one point I found myself applying a tattoo to Dr. Jack Preuss’ cheek (the president of Concordia Irvine). It was all over then, the party really started. It was by far the best banquet at a teacher’s conference.

The speaker for the night was a guy named Ben Glenn. It is really hard to explain what he does but he is called the chalk guy. He tells his story in a very humorous way about how he has overcome ADD and Dyslexia. The last part of his presentation he draws an amazing picture with chalk. I can’t even explain it, but in about 5 minutes there is this amazing piece of art where there was once just a blank wall. Check out the following videos to catch a glimpse of what he does:






One the way back home we stopped to see the dinosaurs on the side of Interstate 10. You know, the ones from Pee Wee’s big adventure? Anyway, we are sitting in Burger King having lunch and in walks a few guys that obviously are part of a road crew or something; orange vests, work boots, bandannas on their heads, long hair, dirty, you know. My oldest takes one look at them and says, “Ohhh, look daddy, pirates!” I am laughing just typing this again. Then she says to me, “I don’t like pirates, they are scaaaaary.” It was so funny!!!!! The “pirates” are soon joined by some more of their crew and my oldest says, “Uh-Oh daddy, more pirates, better watch out.” I just looked at our baby sitter and we just could not stop laughing. But it gets better. As I got up to get a refill, I was followed by one of the “pirates” who walks by our table and winks and smiles at the girls and guess what? Yep, a couple of gold teeth!! You just can’t make this stuff up. We about lost it and had to leave Burger King. With both girls now saying, “We don’t like those guys.” I don’t think they were scared, but they both thought that there were pirates having lunch at Burger King. I will say this; my life is never boring. Thanks for reading. See you next Tuesday.