My 1st Convention Experience

My first Home School Convention was a three day event filled with speakers, vendors, fun, sharing, and lots of choices!!! Overall I enjoyed it. My first conflict was over which presentations to see. Each session I had to choose from about 6 different speakers. I was mostly pleased with my selections and I learned a lot. My second conflict was over the vendor hall, full of every type of workbook, math program, reading program, you get the picture if you wanted it was there! In addition to the vendor hall each speaker promoted their own learning materials and or books. I am a "self improvement" junkie so to speak and so I struggled to not buy every book that applied to family, marriage, raising Godly children, etc.... Luckily for me a speaker I heard on the first day of Convention warned us "newbies" that every book/product we see would be tempting...and Oh So It Was! She gave the advice to not buy anything the first few days, of course pray about my purchases, and remember that all of these items could be purchased at a later time. No need to buy the whole store today! I attended convention on my own and did not know anyone else in attendance. I would say that my only downside to convention was I had hoped to meet others in my home area to share this experience with. It wasn't that folks were not friendly if I said hello, but it seemed people new each other or came with a group. This was intimidating for me...so needless to say I didn't make any new homeschool friends this year. I'm looking forward already to next years convention and am feeling a little better prepared for the exhausting but fun filled experience.