Highlights from Anaheim...

I spent six days within sight of Disneyland, and I did not go there...and I was ten miles from the Pacific Ocean, and I did not go there either...

...but I did spend a lot of hours in the Anaheim Convention Center, where protesters stood outside with signs that said, "Youth Specialties Sends People to Hell." (The best part about the sign was that the part at the top that said "Youth Specialties" was not a permanent part of the sign...meaning that the picketer probably writes out a different organizational name to protest each week...I'm sure it would be funny to show up next week when his sign says, "The Organization of Real Estate Professionals sends people to hell" or something like that...)

We did what we came to do: talk to people about working for YD. Over the six days, we have five people seriously interested in being an Area Director, another ten people seriously interesting in being on full-time staff, and 19 people interested in summer staff and/or internships. Wowzer!

I felt 247% better about the logistics of everything, having a much better idea of what to expect this time around. We ended up with a spot on the corner, which meant a little more traffic. And I ordered this bright red carpet, which shone as brightly as the sun, beckoning passersby...and--best of all, I eased the logistics of my next two conventions by having everything shipped directly from the Anaheim show site straight to the Cincinnati show site! Woo woo! This means I did not have to cart excessively heavy luggage on my way home from Anaheim!

My numero uno favorite surprise visitor for the week was Scott Greene, who was the Camp Director at Camp Adventure in Indiana during my internship there in Summer of 2001. I told him that to this day, he's still my favorite boss, which is true. Because he taught me a lot about empowerment--and--how to get your staff excited about Junior High ministry by blasting Petra in their ears at 7am on a summer morning. It was definitely fantastic to talk with him!

The most entertaining evening of the whole event was on Sunday night when the YD staff team got together for a final hurrah dinner. We ended up at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney (which I describe as Easton or Alderwood on speed.) We were having a pretty fun night, chilling in the rainforest and eating schmancy appetizers.

Then, I realized the men around me had started to go crazy. My coworkers Bethany and Teresa had taken off early to go to a concert, and I was left at a table with eight of my coworkers, seven of whom were wifeless married men. Within a few moments, all of the pent up "being good and being professional" seemed to get to them, and they disintegrated into the mentality of junior high boys. Kevin sprayed water all over me...Aaron and Joel were competing in a credit card tossing competition, and Eric was on the verge of breaking an expensive-looking 6-foot tall space heater. The moral of the story? If you're ever with a group of two girls and eight guys (seven of whom who've spent six days without the supervision of their wives), and the other two girls take off, go with them. Seriously.

And now I've returned to Mount Vernon, which is flooding. I haven't been inconvenienced by it, really, which is funny because we definitely live in the flood plain...and we definitely live less than fifty feet from the river...and the river level is easily higher than our house's foundation right now...all to say, Praise God for sturdy dikes...

here's a photo of Heidi's wonder dog, Max, staking out the flooding and ensuring that he'll protect us from encroaching waters...