WHOOOOO!!!!! What a day!!!! I'm so exhausted yet so exhilarated! Let's start at the very beginning (someone once said that's a very good place to start) And I'm doing this bullet point style because I'm way too excited to put together coherent paragraphs.
- Plane ride was awesome! I enjoyed some white wine, honey roasted peanuts, and watched The Sound of Music and then listened to Phantom Planet's song, "California here we come" (theme song of my once-favorite-show-now-I-can't-fathom-how-I-watched-it, The OC). SO excited to finally be in California for the first ever!
- Got my
overpacked suitcase from baggage, found the free shuttle to the hotel and was super relieved to this time check in to my room and have time to get situated BEFORE Conference registration (when I went to the FOCUS Conferences in college, it was stand in a loooong registration line with all my luggage then finally get to my room with only a few minutes before the first talk)
- Listened to both hours of CatholicAnswers Live while getting situated (what's with it being on at 3 PM here in Cali?? I'm sooo used to it being 5-7 in Chicago yay time zones!)
- Usual-Margo was exhausted and wanted to stay in the super comfy bed plus I had a dumb headache but I pushed myself to go downstairs and get myself registered
- Met Jon Sorenson (Marketing director) in person; he's the staff member I've gotten to know best over facebook and he's a super cool, chill guy! He showed me the "Vendor/Margo-going-broke-too-much-awesome-stuff" room and I came face to face with Dr. Ray Guarendi; first instance of many star-struck encounters; bought his book, "When Faith Causes Family Friction" and he signed it yay!
- I was starving so I went to find someplace to eat, ended up at some sports bar place, got a Gilmore Girls inspired drink (one of Lorelai's usual Friday Night dinners -- Martini with a twist) and a bacon-chicken sandwich
- I totally had a Holy Spirit encounter, where the mid-age guy I was sitting next to asked me what brought me to San Diego so of course that led into discussing Catholicism, turns out he's a fallen away Catholic who never really had any of the reasonings behind the teachings explained (it was just a bunch of rules to him) so I told him about Catholic Answers as well as shared part of my testimony. Praise God! The funniest part was that Trent Horn was sitting at a table nearby with his in-laws and yes, at first I was sooo tempted to call him over to "help me" then I decided to be a grown-up and trust the Holy Spirit to work through me
- Back to the main ballroom for the Evening talks...I got a seat in the 2nd row....and got spotted by THE Patrick Coffin who was like "Margo....it's you...I'm not ready for this!" And I dished it right back "Too bad! I'm here!" and I got a nice hug from him
- Before the talks started, Pat did some announcements and some weird magic trick thing (cuz he likes to show off his "super cool magician tricks")
- Oh yeah, one of the announcements was for two award winners: one for the very first person to sign up for the Conference and then the other was for some crazy-obsessed-fan girl who pressed the "like/love/haha" button on Facebook 10 million times for CatholicAnswers and has been slightly excited for this Conference...no idea who that girl was ;-)
- When Patrick called me up to the stage he asked all the single guys to stand up (there was like 2 or 3 and I could barely see them...that wasn't exactly how I thought things would wind up, but whatever)
- Okay....Dr. Ray Guarendi followed by Fr. Larry Richards = TOO MUCH ENTHUSIASM/ENERGY/HILARITY (especially when they both teased each other relentlessly during their talks) No videos cuz my phone was dying but CatholicAnswers will eventually post the Conference talks online
- Back to the vendor room where I finally got my selfies with my faves Patrick & Trent
- Now I'm about to pass out
Thank You, Jesus, for an absolutely epic first day!! Let's see what You've got planned for the rest of this adventure!
In the words of Patrick Coffin - "BE A SAINT...WHAT ELSE IS THERE???"
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| THE man Patrick Coffin |
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| Trent Horn |
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| Goody basket for my Facebook stalking! |
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| Dr. Ray Guarendi |
Welcome to town friend.
ReplyDeleteHi Margo ;)
ReplyDeleteTrent is fire engine red in that pic-- whad ya do to the poor guy before the shot to make him blush so? Lol
Sounds like you had fun at your conference.
I read your older entry from about a yr ago-- the one where you were self-critiquing pretty hard. I hope the job prospects are lining up for you now after college is done. Be gentle with yourself, girl. All the best this Easter season.
Hi Nubby!
ReplyDeleteTrent was just soooo honored to be in my presence lol more like the other way around :D
Yes, I Had a blast at the Conference and meeting that crazy dude, Chris Sawaya; wish you could have joined us!
I actually am working part time right now as a parish secretary, yay! Eventually, I hope to work for CatholicAnswers either as an apologist or receptionist or Patrick's personal assistant, whatever works! Right now, I'm just shamelessly promoting all things CatholicAnswers on my facebook page :)
Happy Easter!!!!
That Catholic Answers job sounds ambitious ;) Go for it. Glad you guys had fun. I am sure Chris kept things tame... heh heh Well, as tame as he promised, anyway...
ReplyDeleteYou've got a nice comfy blog here. I'll drop in more to say hello if that's ok by you. Have a good day--