My last day in Seattle and in the Northwest. Part of me is a little sad because I love this area of the country, but I’m very ready to go home for a few days. And I literally mean a few. I arrive home at about 2pm tomorrow afternoon and depart on a plane headed to Chicago at about 1pm on Tuesday. So, two nights in my own bed and in my own house – I’ll probably spend most of my time doing laundry, repacking for Chicago, and preparing for our guests who will arrive on Wednesday. Jason, Sara, Samuel and Lauren will be visiting us for a couple of days and I have full confidence that my husband has our house all ready to go for them. We have never had to child-proof before so I’ll have to double-check all the things we never have to think about. I’m planning to make some banana bread before I leave so that the kiddos have something to snack on (not to mention the fact that my husband loves banana bread) and my butter making experience with Alice has inspired me to give it a try. I’m planning on trying out a cinnamon spice butter (with cinnamon, nutmeg, etc – I might just use pumpkin pie spice to make it happen) and I think it will work well with the banana bread. Jason, Sara, Matt and I will be attending the Nebraska-Mizzou game next Saturday. As Jason and Sara are both huge Mizzou fans and Matt definitely leans that way, I will be in the minority in our group. I believe we will be meeting up with some of Jason’s college friends (more Mizzou fans) so hopefully the Husker “hating” is kept to a minimum. We are thrilled that they are coming to visit and really look forward to showing them a little bit of Omaha. The last time they were here was for our wedding which was a short trip, in the middle of the winter (it rained all day on our wedding day which turned into an ice/snowstorm the morning after as everyone was leaving town) and we kept them a little bit busy with wedding activities, so this will be a great time for them to visit. Matt and I both arranged to have Friday off from work so we can show them a little bit of Omaha. I’m thinking a trip to the zoo might be in the cards for Friday, or perhaps a trip to the Children’s museum. I’m going to recommend they do both while they are here, it will just depend which one they want to do on Thursday by themselves and which one they want to do Friday when we are around. The game Saturday is at a horrible time – 8pm! A great time as we won’t have to get up at the crack of dawn, BUT the trip back to Omaha is going to be interesting. Even more interesting considering I have to work the next day for our Fall Open House. I don’t have to be at Creighton until 11am, but we likely won’t arrive home until 2am or later. And that might be hopeful thinking. Lincoln and I-80 can be a little nuts on game days. It will all be worth it though – I haven’t been to a Huskers game in a long time (3-4 years) and it will be great to have guests at our house.
The last day of NACAC was fun. I sat in on a presentation that I didn’t expect to be very good which turned out to be a great presentation. It was such a great presentation that our office is going to order the CD of the presentation so that everyone who was not able to attend the conference will be able to hear it. It was a panel discussion that discussed the basics of admission counseling. It was a good reminder for a seasoned admission counselor, but would also be a great resource for someone new to admission counseling.
I ran into a former co-worker at NACAC today - Chris Ramsay. Chris and I worked together at Truman for 2 years and then he left for a couple of years and then returned last year to work in the office again for a year. Now he is a college counselor at a high school in Saint Louis. It was great to see him and catch up for a little while. He will be visiting Omaha next month for a visit at Creighton and hopefully I will be able to see him again.
Kim and I attended the membership meeting for NACAC this afternoon, and then the conference ended. Before the membership meeting we walked down to Pike’s Place Market. Kim had never been there before and was as amazed as I was last year when Matt and I visited for the first time. We got to see some fish being thrown, and she picked up a couple of souvenir items to take home. The membership meeting was fairly uneventful, although it seems that there was anticipation that it might be. NACAC was voting on reincorporation in Delaware and away from the current incorporation in Iowa and I got the feeling there was the possibility of protest because the Midwest tends to feel that they always get ignored in favor of the coasts. However, this situation had nothing to do with the location of the state and rather with the political climate, rules and regulations for non-profit organizations. So, the amendment passed without protest and we got out of our meeting an hour early.
Kim and I headed back to the hotel after the membership meeting to drop off our stuff and change into more comfortable clothes. Then we headed out to find a sports bar with the Nebraska-Virginia Tech game and found a great little place where we could actually sit in comfortable chairs and relax while watching the game. At halftime, I received a phone call from the mom of a friend of mine from high school that I had run into earlier at the conference. Callie lives in Washington with her husband now and they drove up to see her mom at the social event that evening. I haven’t seen Callie since sophomore year of college and it was great to be able to catch up! We wandered around the Experience Music Project (where the social was held) and caught up on 7 years of life – crazy.