GMCHE Conference

The Greater Milwaukee Catholic Home Educators just had their homeschool conference this past weekend and it was wonderful. I am SO impressed and pleased with all of the hard work, joy and enthusiasm that went into this conference - from the conference organizers, to the many parent and teen volunteers. Here are a few highlights (if I tried to do a post on each thing, I'd never finish).

1. Regina Doman and her husband Andrew both spoke at the conference. Our family hosted them for the weekend (I've known them for many years, particularly since Andrew's company did our web hosting for Love2learn for many years) and we really enjoyed finally meeting them in person! Good conversation was always in plentiful supply - even when we picked them up at the airport at 2:30 in the morning! (Bad weather had delayed their flight significantly.)

2. A bunch of teens in our homeschool group put on a play of Regina Doman's The Midnight Dancers, based on her book, during the conference itself. Regina was kind enough to write a script for the group herself and it was exciting to have her in the audience for the world premiere. :)





Here's a picture of the 12 sisters (two of them are my daughters). I was very impressed with the quality of the acting and directing and the attention to so many details that the kids put into the play. Bishop Callahan was in attendance and apparently really liked it!



Note: The book, the Midnight Dancers, has one scene in particular that is a bit more graphic/mature than it was in the play, and so the book may not be appropriate for younger or more sensitive readers.

3. I enjoyed meeting Andrew Pudewa for the first time. He's so funny in real life and I was surprised to realize that he knows members of both my family and my husband's family. For the second time in my life, someone has with great amazement said, "Wow. A Lawless married a Van Hecke?!"

Ria went to his high school writing intensive and enjoyed it very much.

4. Part of the fun of running our Love2learn table is that my friends who help me run it also (for the past two conferences) have organized the high school panel and set up their displays as part of our informational table. People really seem to appreciate having tables where they can just chat with experienced homeschoolers and learn about those aspects of homeschooling that you can't *buy*. Besides our display of homeschool projects, photo boards (and a DVD slide show) of various activities and awards from things like the Latin convention, we actually had a bunch of teens hanging out in the middle of our big square of tables - visiting, playing guitar and violin, reading, etc. I think they were a great witness to the joy of homeschooling.

It seems like there is much, much more to say, but I'm too tired to remember what the rest of it is at the moment! I am still updating my post on the notes from my talk. There's a very real possibility that I may be presenting it as a webinar some day not too far in the future.