Homeschool Convention 2010

GBSers were invited to volunteer at the annual Midwest Home-school Convention. We get our required work hours for the school in for it so I decided to go. It was very hectic with almost five thousand applicants, each of which had an average of three people with them. So in all, there were almost fifteen thousand people there this year. I was in charge of registering the people who had not pre-registered. Because I worked over six hours for them, I got a free pass to the whole convention and a lady gave me her pass so I got another one. A pass for an individual is fifty dollars so I didn't want to waste all of that. So I found a good excuse to get mom to come visit me.

She came up last night and brought Zeke along. I asked my Korean friend, Chaehun, if Zeke could stay with him in the guys dorm. He was ok with that. Zeke and him hit it off and had a good time looking at Chaehun's pictures from all of his travels. They also went jogging early this morning.

We left for the convention at around eight. Mom wanted to go listen to one of the speakers. Zeke and I weren't very interested in that, so while she was in there, we went and walked to the two baseball stadiums and took pictures. Then we walked all the way down to the Ohio river and took some more pictures and had fun trying to hit starlings with rocks. We made sure to only do that in places where there weren't any people around though.

I thought this was just hilarious

Some sort of work of modern art down at the river. It shoots out steam and makes all these creepy noises.

We walked for well over an hour and then made our way back to the convention center. We spent the next several hours walking through out the exhibition hall. There were so many people and so much stuff. It was quite overwhelming.

After we were finished there, we went to the Carew tower, the tallest building in Cincinnati and took the elevator fifty stories to the top. The view was spectacular and it was very pleasant up there.

The first 45 stories up, the elevator was very new fangled and fancy. The last five stories' elevator was very third world- cramped and slow with peeling paint.

We drove around downtown some and I showed them the places I frequent. We also drove through Over The Rhine and I pointed out my church.

This is Vine Street Chapel where I go Sunday mornings. It is very small. I think people live in the upper stories.

After that we went to Graeters ice cream and each got a milk shake. Then we went over to Eden Park and walked for awhile. We walked down to the conservatory and looked at all the beautiful plants and flowers. Then we walked over to Mirror Lake and the fountain. It is so beautiful now that spring is here. I love spring!

My lovely mom with one of the bonsai trees.

The fountain at Mirror Lake.

Then they left me :( I had an awesome time with them. I don't think I have laughed so much in a long time! Zeke was so funny.

My roommate also left for the weekend so I am very alone. I don't know what it is about these last few months, but I think I am more homesick then I was when I first came to school! Five more weeks to go!