The conference

Well, it's been an interesting couple of days, to say the least! Yesterday we got up around 2:30 to get ready to go, and were still running later than we liked. Then we hit rush hour traffic in Milwaukee. . . ugh. But we still made it in time, and after a cunfusing chase through the hotel and the conference center Anita and I managed to arrive safe and sound for our class in time. We both passed all of our tests on the first try!!!! Praise the Lord! I was pretty worried about some of my practical exams, but it went just fine. Now today Jere is taking an all day class while I watch the little ones in our hotel room. By the way, I'm discovering Hilton, despite its fancy look and high price tag, is a rather disgusting place to stay. No free anything (WiFi, drinking water, breakfast), and a very tiny room with full size beds. Not a treat with three adults and three children! There's hardly room enough on the floor for the pack and play, Leanna's little sleeping mat, and Jaron's sleeping bag with a tiny pathway left over to get to the bathroom. The ambulance service is paying for our rooms, thankfully, but I still feel bad staying here as the price per night is, in my humble opinion, ridiculous. The big plus to it is that it connects to the conference center via a skyway, so yesterday when Jere had the children he only had to walk across the skyway and go down the escalator so I could feed the baby. Tonight Anita is going home and one of Jere's cousins is coming to watch the children so Jere and I can double up on some classe time.

The children make quite a splash with everyone! Especially the dear black people who are the waiters and clean-up folks. They love it when we stop and talk to them about our little tribe. We get teased by the other EMTs that we brought the whole squad. :-) They are the only children here, that we've seen yet, despite being told that other families do come. Maybe their kids are older and spend all their time at the waterpark? Whatever the case, we gets a lot of comments and friendly smiles, and even more stares. I'd thought of taking them to a children's museum of some sort, but to take 3 folks this size out by my lonesome self seemed rather, um, overwhelming. We did bring a bunch of special toys for them, and the boys really enjoy just standing in the skywalk watching big city life go swirling around down below. If it's not too cold after naps this afternoon I hope to take them on a little walk outside, though downtown big cities like this intimidate me a little bit. :-)