First, let me start by saying how lucky I am to be the mom of two of the greatest little boys ever! Jaxson has introduced me to a world I never could have imagined. When he was born almost 2 years ago I never thought that I would find such awesome people and form bonds with them that I hope will remain the rest of our lives. I am so incredibly lucky to have been given the opportunity to raise both of my boys and now have a whole new “family” thanks to the LPA community!!
On to Nashville – this was our first LPA conference and to say that the whole event was a bit overwhelming in the beginning is definitely an understatement, but oh was it worth it! Besides the fact that we were traveling with 2 kids, one who is 6 years old and has quite an opinion on just about everything…. and another who is almost 2 years old so we had naps and bedtimes to contend with all of the events going on all week, the conference has an enormous amount to offer!
We started the week by going to Cowboy Town with the Wymer family. Unfortunately I was not in camera mode at that point so I don’t have any pictures from there :( We did have a fun day, but mostly my mom, Jax and I just relaxed while Peyton and Jason fished. Peyton has been begging us to take him fishing for weeks so he really enjoyed the afternoon there. It’s a shame it was so darn hot! (You’ll see that’s a recurring theme during this week in Nashville.)
Later Saturday evening we went to Nashville Sounds and took the boys to their first live baseball game. We had a really good time, but unfortunately both of the boys have short attention spans so we kept having to take them out of the stadium for walks or bathroom trips. We only sat about 6 or 7 rows up so Peyton had a great chance to get an autograph from one of the players before the game started!
The fireworks after the game were incredible! Mom was nice enough to take Jaxson up to the tunnels so Jason and I got a chance to actually sit and enjoy them with Peyton. Unfortunately for mom, Jaxson screamed the entire time. The fireworks were loud, especially since we were in the stadium, but I was definitely jealous when I learned from Melissa Wymer that Nikki slept thru the entire show!
The next evening we joined everyone for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Dinner was great, but it got very warm and stuffy in our dining room and Jaxson was NOT a happy guy that evening. Jason and I spent the evening quickly scarfing down our dinner so we could take turns running Jaxson outside and trying to quiet his screaming spells. We really missed having the opportunity to sit and talk with other parents, but we’ll be sure to take advantage of that kind of thing when he’s older!
Peyton fell asleep on my lap during dinner so we decided to skip the large fireworks show at the riverfront and just head back to the hotel. Of course as soon as we got back Peyton woke up and was VERY disappointed that he missed his chance to slide on the large blowup slide out in the street. Jaxson, however, was quite happy to watch a fireworks show on the other side of town from our room where he was not afraid since he couldn’t hear the large booms.
The next day we tried to take the boys to the Kids Room. What a fabulous idea!!! Thank you to all of the volunteers and the ladies who were running this room. The Kids Room was a large room in the main hotel set up so you could bring you kids to play while you attended meetings or conferences. Again this was a fabulous idea, however my kids did not really like the idea of mom and dad leaving, even if it was for only an hour. So, I decided to stay and play with Jaxson for a little while and got some fun pictures while we were there.
Thanks so much to my mom! Since Jaxson cried the entire time we left him the first day, she helped us out by staying with the boys during the other meetings we had to attend.
We also attended the POLP meeting later that evening and found some great friends! Unfortunately with all of us crammed into one tiny room it got hot rather quickly and I ended up chasing Jaxson around the hallways so I didn’t have too much time to spend talking with everyone. I did get a couple of good pictures during the short time though….
For some reason the boys decided it would be a good time to reenact Wrestle Mania 3! I am always a little worried about Peyton being too rough with Jaxson until I heard one of the moms say “I’ve got $5 on the little one!”
We did a little shopping with the boys the following day and my mom bought Peyton a guitar he’d been asking for. Jaxson wanted to get in on the fun and played us a little ditty that night!
We also spent some time at the Science Museum with our friends. Peyton seemed to really enjoy himself since he could run around and do most everything.
Jaxson enjoyed snack time with Ian and a bag of Cheetos before we left!
Our final night in Nashville was spent at “Family Night”. This was a pretty nice show that was put together at the Conference. It had three acts – the first was a dance routine, the second was a juggling act and the third was a hypnotist. The hypnotist was our favorite of the evening and Jax, of course, was a bit of a ham himself during the show!
Before we left Thursday morning we said goodbye to Jaime, Caitlyn, Michelle and David. They stayed in the same hotel and actually on the same floor as we did.
We drove about half way home on Thursday and found a hotel to stay in that had a POOL! Peyton had been begging for a pool all week so we thought we’d take a break from driving and do a little swimming Thursday evening.
All in all our first National Conference was a hit! As much as I want to I’m not sure if we’ll make it all the way to California next year, but I’m looking forward to our next conference, whenever it may be and always love spending time with our new friends.
