NAGC Day 2

I knew after last night's social event that I would have no problem getting into the first session this morning as many teachers arrived back to the hotel pretty late tonight.  I was right and enjoyed listening to a speaker discussing Growth Mindset.  She had a lot of resources for us that I  gathered after the meeting.  The keynote speaker today was enthusiastic, but a little more generic.  I enjoyed listening to her, but appreciated the one from yesterday even more.  Today's speaker ended early and I was able to meet Doug for lunch by 11:15.  We headed straight to the pool as we knew that it would become packed soon.  We were glad that we did as we were the second one to order.

After lunch Doug caught the bus to EPCOT.  He wanted to tour the countries while I attended the afternoon sessions.  I had really been looking forward to my next session - high ability siblings.  The speaker was excellent and answered so many questions that I have had raising my own high ability children.  My favorite quote was "I'm not underachieving.  I'm just trying to prove that I'm not my sibling."  That summed up Cal's entire high school academic experience.  I felt validated as a parent by the time I left the session.  It has taken a lot of work to raise four high ability children while keeping their autonomy.

My next session was also interesting.  It was entitled "Pobody's Nerfect" and dealt with perfectionism in high ability students.  I appreciated the topic, but most of it I had read before.  I do now know, however, that I am a self-orientated perfectionist.  When I was finished with the afternoon sessions I caught a bus to EPCOT.  I was extremely lucky as the bus came within two minutes and we were at the park within ten minutes.

EPCOT was packed as we expected, but we were still able to tour the countries and sample many of the different treats.  My favorite was France as usual, but there were so many other good ones to try tonight.  Ireland had a delicious chocolate cake/pudding that I really enjoyed as well .  We also had time to do some shopping.  England and Germany had the best stores in the various countries, but China and Africa were fun to shop in as well.  We were going to ride Soarin', but the wait was over 90 minutes and neither of us were up for standing that long.

Instead we caught a ride on the monorail to the Polynesian.  They have several restaurants and we wanted to check them out.  It was absolutely packed.  We stayed for a little while and then headed to Magic Kingdom.  It was crowded, but fortunately we had Fast Passes to ride three of our favorites - Peter Pan, Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean.  Meg and Cam would have thought us lame, but we had fun.  We were also able to ride the Haunted Mansion without too long of a wait.  The park was beautiful tonight as they had already decorated for Christmas.  The Jungle Cruise had even changed to the "Jingle Cruise" complete with Christmas decorations, music and holiday jokes.

The park was open until 1 a.m. but we were too exhausted to stay that long.  Doug waited for me as I did some shopping and we were back at the hotel before 11:30 p.m.  Our luck with buses continued and we appreciated the short ride back.  Doug was still hungry so we stopped at the food market for a Chicken Caesar wrap.  It was a different experience without the Heinisch children, but we still had fun.