To Nashville & back....& another fill!

Wow did this weekend ever go by fast!!!! It was here & gone before I even knew it. Boo! :)  Let's see... Friday we got up early, had breakfast, then went & sat for the confrence/training. Mandisa was the first person out...oh I just love her. She's so amazing. If you don't remember who Mandisa is... she was on American Idol a few years back. She was a heavy girl back then & Simon Cowell said that she wasn't going to go anywhere cause she was so big & he was making fat jokes about her. Well she saw that on TV & she confronted him about it & told him that she'd forgiven him! She was eliminated unfortunately from American Idol. But she's since gone on to be an absolutely amazing singer...and she sings for the Lord. (She's also lost 100 pounds!) I've had the pleasure of seeing her a few times because of Women of Faith & she's just amazing. Then we were able to hear from some of the speakers, more singers, had some group leader training, had lunch, more training, singing, & hearing from more speakers.

We had a little break before dinner so a bunch of us went on the boat that they have there in the hotel. These are a couple pictures from that:

It was gorgeous. Nothing special cause it didn't go anywhere we couldn't see by walking around, but it was cool just to ride around on the boat. :)

For dinner we sat by other Billings group leaders & were fortunate enough to get to know a few of them. After dinner we were going to go & save seats for the concert that night. Remember the picture from the previous post of the room & how big it is. We heard once that there was 2,200 & once that there was 2,400 women...so you have to get there SUPER early to be able to get a good seat. So before dessert came a few of us went to get seats. Unfortunately the doors weren't open yet, but there were already people lined up by the doors! So we decided to wait. We knew it was going to be a good concert cause we hadn't heard from Sandi Patty yet...so we needed to sit close!

To make a long story short.....a worker finally came about 15 mins later (& by now it was packed by the doors) & he talks to us like we're kids. He says "Listen up! If you run, you will be kicked out & the doors will be shut! Do NOT run! You MUST walk!" LOL  So everyone passed the message on & about 10 mins later he opened up the doors. It totally reminded me of a great Black Friday sale! Sooooo many women were literally speed-walking towards the front!!! Hahaha! It was hilarious. We ended up just about 7 rows from the front...which are GREAT seats so we were very happy with that.

The concert was great!! Sandi Patti sang, Mandisa sang...oh and the 2 of them sang Ode To Joy from the end of Sister Act 2. (If you haven't seen it...watch it & you'll see what I'm talking about...it was so great!) Then Selah came on & sang a few songs. We heard some more stories from other group leaders, too. It was a great night.

When we were done we wanted to go to a mexican restaurant so everyone else could have guacamole! So 7 of us went to Solario (I think that's what it was called). Six people grouped into 3 groups of 2 & shared Guacamole for 2. I had some tortilla soup...mmmmm. Then it was time for bed cause the next day was gonna be long for us.

We decided to skip breakfast, & instead we got a coffee, packed up our stuff, took it to the luggage holding area, & then went in for the closing sessions. It ended at noon, but mom & I had to get on the noon shuttle. We were trying our best to NOT be disappointed.... I mean, this was a free trip that we got! But 3 of us had to leave on Saturday, but everyone else from Billings got to leave on Sunday. :(  So after the conference was over they took a tour of Nashville & then went to the Grand Ole Opry for a concert!!!!!!! I was so jealous! But that's ok...I got to come home & do a fill on Brooklyn's expanders & see my awesome family. :)

We had a pretty uneventful trip home. (Thank goodness.) And we got into Lewistown at about 9:30 pm...maybe? If I'm remembering right! Dustin had put the Emla on Brooklyn & then got her to sleep so she wouldn't pull at the dressing. I did the fill as soon as we got home & it went great. She didn't flinch when I poked her & we did soooo great!

I got 20 cc's in the scalp expander...so that one is at 95 cc's now. The front one got 25 cc's in it so now there's 100 cc's in that one!!! We're 1/3 of the way there! And we leave for Chicago in just 4 1/2 weeks, so we'll probably have to start doing the expansions more frequently than every week. We'll just have to see what the surgeon says.

Yesterday we did the photo shoot of Brooklyn for the 2nd cookbook: Brooklyn's Best Volume 2. Unfortunately...I had so much anxiety about it!! I needed a picture that was just as good as the picture on the cover of Volume 1...but that picture is SO amazing that n one thought it could happen. But I still had to try. We did get some great pictures for the back, but there weren't any that could go on the cover...so Friday we're going to do another one with some different ideas. I'll post some on here when we do the 2nd one.

So that's it for now. I'll post pictures of Brooklyn after the next fill this Saturday...  :o)