Convention/meeting/babysitting/convention pictures!

While I was at home, I uploaded a bunch of pictures to my blog so I could work on my post later while over babysitting again (right now). 

My computer had them mixed up a bit and I didn't realize that until after I was halfway through loading pictures, so there are pictures from the ND home school convention/conference at the beginning and end of this post! 

That Thursday, my mom, Andrew and I drove to Grand Forks and got checked into our hotel before heading over to the Alerus Convention Center to help set up for the convention.   We'd paid for 1 table to promote the Project Appleseed program and were pleased to have so much interest!  We gave out lots of info. and even sold that bright pink T-shirt you can see on the table (even though we weren't really trying to sell anything).    We were storing some things under the table, which is why I'm searching down there....

Andrew and I had put together several pages of pictures from our past Appleseeds and laminated them.  You can see a few of the pages on the the right side of this picture:

Thursday evening, Miranda G. came to our hotel room and visited for a couple of hours.  :) 

Friday was full of great workshops!  That evening, there was a family fun hour.  This is one of the games they played-----pulling the Kleenex out of the box as quickly as possible while using just 1 hand.

The next group of people had to stuff the Kleenex back into the boxes as well as they could in 1 minute...

Andrew and the red-headed girl were judges for that game...

They had lots of other games too.  This one had team members try to stack up 4 hangers without the hangers slipping to the corners of the hanger, all of this while the hanger was dangling from your teammate's finger...

These next 2 pictures are from the meeting my mom and Elizabeth H. had in Napoleon a couple weeks back...

My mom was pointing on the chart while Elizabeth explained things...

And now for the babysitting pictures!

Here are the twins and Johanna looking out the windows at the bunnies in the snow...

Coloring, or trying to....  :)

Meal times are fun!

Amelia had discovered a cookie-decorating kit one day, so we opened that after Johanna and Tracy got here and they all had fun coloring with their edible-ink markers!

Snowman in the making...

James, working on his snowman...

Tracy Jo...

Johanna....

That cookie was just too tempting....

Tracy and Amelia...

Of course, Tracy ended up with a little green dot above her lip....  ;)

James and Michael with their creations...

Yummy!  (Isn't her face just adorable?)

Johanna found a red marker...

Amelia had a very cute little snowman who even had a flower on it's hat....

They wanted me to take a picture of my snowman too, so here it is...

See the flower on the hat?

Oh, and now we're back to the home school conference pictures.

Andrew sat in the NDHSA (North Dakota Home School Association) booth all day both Friday and Saturday, taking orders for CDs or MP3 recordings of all or some of the workshops.  He also had general information there and helped people get where they were wanting to go in the vendor hall....

He was SO busy on Saturday that there was almost always someone there ordering.  My mom and I were busy too and we each introduced a couple of the workshop speakers (and got them water if they needed it; closed the door to keep outside noise to a minimum; counted the number of people who attended the workshop; things like that....)

And now we jump back to the used book sale on Thursday evening...

 

 

The Project Appleseed tables....

Need some free targets?

There were a LOT of people who came to the book sale!  It wasn't just books/movies that were being sold either.  Different families with home businesses brought their products to sell (soap, lotion, wall hangings, paintings, cleaning supplies, games, etc...).

The sale lasted for a couple of hours and the back of this room was always full!

Andrew again...

Our friends, the L. family's table....

There was a silent auction at the convention too.  I thought this chicken bag was really cute, as it was made from a bag that used to contain chicken feed.  Someone cut the bag off, sewed the bottom closed, then sewed some handles on and had a sturdy little sack....

There were 3 quilts that people made and donated to the silent auction (you can see one of them on the table there).

This is part of the vendor hall, during set-up time...

Saturday afternoon, there was a fencing demonstration (and not the barbed wire and pliers type)....

The convention center was very nice and very large!  This is part of the main hallway....

 
 
 
Friday evening, my mom went and visited some ladies that she grew up with in Eureka (who now live in Grand Forks).  Andrew and I went to the family fun night, then we invited members of 2 families over to our room for playing games

This couple has been friends of ours for years and years.  :)  They're Mennonites from the Harvey area...

Mr. & Mrs. Biby talking with, um, someone...

Andrew, keeping busy...

One of my mom's childhood friends stopped in for a visit...  It had been 5 years since my mom saw Anna, so they had lots of catching up to do.

 
 
After the convention was over Saturday evening, we drove to our friends, the U's house.  It was the first time we'd ever been there and we enjoyed our time so much! 

We ladies, looking at a photo album....

Mr. U., sittin' in his chair.  He stayed up with all of us younger people until 2 in the morning, playing Dutch Blitz!  :)  We had a blast!!!

After breakfast Sunday morning, we had some Bible reading/sharing time and sang several hymns a cappela.  We had to leave shortly after the noon meal, as there was snow and wind in the forecast and we had almost a 4 hour drive home yet...   The picture below is similar to the one above, except Andrew cropped it some.  Oh, and yes, Andrew was there too, but he was the one taking the picture, so is not in it....

 

We arrived home safely (after several prayers said for safety) right at supper time. 

 

There.  I do believe that catches you all up, somewhat.  :)

 

May God bless your week.~