Ah, yes. So here I am, finally getting ready to tell you some stuff about the conference from last week. It was epic. The end. No, I’m just kidding, cause yes it was epic, but that’s not the end, that’s just the beginning, and if I’m not careful here, this post is going to go on way to long, so I will shorten it.

a cool thing from a neat store nearby

We left our house at 5:47 Monday morning. (Yes, now y’all realize why I say I’m going to have to cut out some info.) ::Insert big chunk of information dissipating into thin air right now:: ….So, after the most exciting car ride of my life we were at the conference center by 4:00 p.m. to get set up.*

Setting up the sound and all for my adopted dad’s** music was a lot of work, and so we didn’t have time to go get supper before the meetings started at 6:30. Plus there were  lots of people who wanted to meet dad and kept coming up to the stage (while he was doing his soundcheck) to get him to sign stuff and get pictures. It was sweet. There was even one guy who wanted Dad to sign his guitar.

When Dad was finished with his singing, he was telling everyone about his DVD’s and CD’s, and he told them about my book as well. He was like “My daughter, Lydia (Note: That’s the name I published the book under), just had her first book published and…” And then he told them a little bit about it and had me stand up (I was in the front row) and turn around and wave to everyone. It was pretty cool.

I asked for green beans instead of noodles at Red Lobster. Boy was it yummy!

So people started buying my book. That was a wonderful feeling. Now depending on who you are, this may or may not seem like a lot to you, but between Monday night and Thursday morning, I sold around 80 books. I was maybe a little bit happy about that. (That seemed like a lot to me, in case you were wondering.)

All throughout the conference I had people coming up to me wanting to talk to me, have me sign their books and even get their pictures taken with me. I was somewhat in shock by how many people actually knew who I was by the end of the meetings, and how many of them wanted to talk with me. And goodness! They wanted to get their picture taken with little ol’ me! That was about beyond my comprehension. Oh yes, and one of the crowning moments of the week: A family came up and wanted me to sign the t-shirts they were wearing. No joke. It’s like “Wow, I think I really am an author!”

The whole week… It was seriously a dream come true, but I didn’t realize it would be coming true this soon. Plus, for some odd reason, I always thought I’d feel different or something when I finally was a published author. I thought… Well, I’m not even sure what I thought. Maybe I thought that I would feel like I had ‘arrived’ or some such thing. Now I’m realizing that most likely, I’ll always be striving to reach the next level and I’ll never actually be ‘satisifed’ where I am. Not that I’m not happy with where I am, just that I feel the pushing and tugging and yanking to do more. To climb higher. To accomplish what I was born to do. Yeah, major bunny trail, right there ^ folks!

a group of kids wanting to talk to dad

There were also some people who wanted to take us out to eat throughout the week. Ok, so they actually wanted to take my parents out to eat, and since our family is a package deal, I got to tag along. Most of the time I didn’t say much when we were out with other people, it was more interesting to just listen to the conversation instead of joining in.

On Wednesday was my dad’s birthday. Ken Ham had him come up front and everyone sang happy birthday to him. That was cool.

One day during an afternoon break, we drove up into the mountains so we could savor the beauty. It was really peaceful and I enjoyed it immensely. I’d heard my parents talk about the Smokey Mountains for several years (they’ve been at the same conference center before, I’ve just never been along with them), so it was nice finally being able to experience them for myself. Plus, just being in the car with the windows down was wonderful, because I can’t even describe to you how much I like having the wind blowing in my face… It’s just amazing.

in the Smokey Mountains

Sometimes you meet someone and you’re like “Wow, we just connected really quickly and you’re so much fun and I just want to talk with you and meet up with you again and goodness, you’re a very interesting person and whoa, we’ve got stuff in common, why can’t we live closer to each other and that is one of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen, can I hold him?” Or, maybe you’re not like that when you meet up with certain people, but I am. Or at least I have been like that once.

I met Susan a couple of weeks ago when I was down at the Creation Museum with my parents (actually, I met her when we were over at her in-law’s house for supper). She’s amazing. Therefore, I was totally thrilled when I found out that she was going to be at the conference along with her adorable kid:

Getting to hold him

 See, so he really is my friend. And not only did I get to hold him at the conference, but I actually got to take care of him for a little while. No joke, peoples. This little guy was in my specific care for probably about 45 minutes. Yep! That’s right folks, aren’t you wishing you could have been in my shoes now? I had a whole lot of fun. (Alright, in all reality he was sleeping the whole time, but it was still cool!)

Wow, I’ve got a ton more to say. Like a ton. But, I realize this post is getting overly long, so with this happy note, I will end my saga of how I survived the conference.
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*The car ride wasn’t really that exciting, only it did rain most of the time.

**For the rest of the post I’m going to drop the ‘adopted’ before I speak of my adopted parents, since it should be obvious who I’m talking about.