Friday to Sunday, Indianapolis to Cincinnati

The easiest drive of our trip so far: only about two hours from Indianapolis to Cincinnati.  We arrived too early to check in, so we drove around Cincinnati.  Somehow Tom has a nose to find the drug-infested parts of town--on accident, of course!  We made it out alive and called the hotel to see if we could check in early since we couldn't easily kill another three hours.  They were so nice to let us check in early.

We were here!  We had made it to the RTS Family Conference!  When we arrived Tom and I looked at each other and marveled that we had made it after all these months of planning.  It had seemed daunting when we first discussed a roadtrip, but now that we had made it to Cincinnati, we could enjoy the conference and then the roadtrip home.  It was very exciting for us to check in and immediately see families that had kids with RTS.  There were so many people!  And it was so wonderful to meet RTS blogger moms that I know so well but have never met: Brandi, Gena, Tena, Terri, Kelly, Jessica and Jessica, Michelle, Kristi, Myssie.  And it was beautiful to meet your kids too!

The meetings were really helpful:  Tom and I split up for several of them so we could go to more sessions and get more info.  It will take a while for us to digest all the information we got, but the most helpful sessions I attended were on teaching life skills and another on financial planning for the future.  Natalie had fun meeting other RTS kids, and Lukas is starting to understand better how there are other kids like Natalie.  Konrad was a constant "hi!" machine, and drooling Dominik had everyone else drooling over how cute he looked.  It was so enjoyable interacting with both RTS children and adults, and we hope to encourage West Coast RTS families to start organizing reunions.  We live near Disneyland...should we have a reunion here or in Northern CA to make it more central on the West Coast?  Someone chime in and plan it and we'll come!

After the conference ended on Sunday, we went to the Creation Museum for the afternoon.  It was great to see Michelle and Ben, and Austin and Andrew there too.  I hadn't gotten a picture of Natalie and Austin together at the conference, so when Natalie woke up, we got a stroller picture of her with Austin.  Then we drove to Lexington, where we spent the night. I couldn't wait to get to the hotel so I could take my contacts out:  my left eye hurt terribly.  But that is another story for tomorrow!