Texas: Veteran's Day

There are days when I open my email and I marvel. Sometimes I giggle uncontrollably. Other times I gasp in appreciation & admiration of my fellow impactors-of-young-children: teachers, librarians, performers et. al. There are times I have a lone tear slowly make it's way down my cheek. Here's the email were I did a tad bit of D.) all of the above.

"Debbie, I was so thrilled to see your 'Red, White and Blue' book come out..... I've been waiting since I went to your workshop in Austin last summer. We have 286 Pre-K children (military kids from Fort Hood) preparing to sing it as a special Veterans Day celebration for their parents. I've ordered the book, but is there any way to get the hand motions/sign language while we are waiting for the book to arrive? I have tried to remember what I could from your workshop, but my notes are sketchy. I think I was just having too much fun! Thanks for shaing your talent with us! --- Anita, Copperas Cove TX"

Imagine the look on my face when I opened this amazing communique, just as I was packing to depart for Annaheim. Awe. Appreciation. Gratitude. Delight. All rolled into one.

Here's her second email in the train-of-thought unfolding,

"We are working on a little slide show, video piece of the kids doing the signs....... we want to add bits of the kids presentation as well as pictures of the kids with their parents in uniform. A special Veteran's Day presentation. We usually have parents from most of the service branches represented. "

Oh wow!!!! How I wanted to be a fly on the wall for this event. Yet, even though I wasn't there in person, my efforts, my work, my song, my project made it there without me. That's what a legacy is all about.

The third email in the series contained the photo above. Samantha's drawing of her hand saying "I love you" in sign language, colored in red, white and blue as our flag. Samantha is five year old and this is from her journal, before their big celebration.

Some days I just pinch myself and sigh.

Bats, Bats & More BATS!!!

We learned that our hotel was literally perched along side a colony of one & a half MILLION bats. The second largest urban bat colony, adjacent to our Hyatt under Congress Avenue Bridge. Right within a minute's walk of our front door. We also learned that there was a nightly party at dusk, as folks gathered all around the bridge to watch as they flew from their refuge beneath the bridge and took to a night of scarfing down mosquitos. There was a popsicle man with all natural popscicles. There were at least two fellows selling light sabers. There were several kayak clubs that linked below the bridge. We were told that perhaps the best seats in the house were on top of the bridge watching as they flew out en mass. The good news is that we saw lots & lots of bats. The popscicle man told us that the previous day's deluge of rain, the day we landed at the airport, had put the bats on a later departure...... so no dusk bat departure for us. They waited until it was completely dark. By that time the tour boats had arrived below the bridge and were shining their big lights...... giving THE eeriest strobe light effect that you can imagine. Well worth the wait. Search on YouTube for numerous videos of the black cloud at dusk. Maybe I can get invited back when the females are not in pupping season.

The Day Concludes

Here's the Freezing

Jumping Then Freezing

Penthouse: Foothills II, on the 17th floor, overlooking the river. My breakout workshop: Music, Movement & Motivation. With the help of the AV team, we got from the keynote on the 2nd floor to the 17th in the fifteen minute transition. Unplugged my computer & reconnected to the LCD upstairs in the time available. I was delighted to pull it off with support. The moral to the story: Ask for help.

Here we are at the very end of the workshop, when I FINALLY remembered to take some pictures. I totally missed capturing the other 80 minutes of our fun. It finally dawned on me as we finished our double Higgeldy Dance, that I hadn't turned on the camera to that point.

So here's the big ending, "Jumpin' Jiminy." We had a professional jumper demonstrate jumping in perfect form. There was jumping all through out the entire room. My favorite part is always the freezing frozen verse.

Double Jumbo Screens

Cheesecake!

My "Star" Photographer

I decided to ask for a volunteer photographer to grab some pictures of us in action. Our very capable volunteer is pictured above in the first picture. She's on the left and is a true Star...... which just happens to be her first name as well. Thanks, sweetie!

Twelve Thirteen: Blast-off!

Honest-to-goodness. We synchronized our watches and I got "launched" at 12:13!! It's time to "CELEBRATE!" Let's get this party started. Texas style!!!!

Posing with my Peeps

The first picture is my Paula Jones snuggle to start the day. Paula is the one who leads the charge in the organizing of this three-day event. She is my connection to being invited to participate. She's got the best team of folks to follow thru on all of the many details to orchestrate such a positive experience for so many. Thanks Paula. Thanks also to the brand new peeps in my fanclub. Whooop!

Luggage Carousel: Austin

We've landed safely in Austin...... through a whole series of amazing serendipitous bits. We left Sister Bay at 4:10 a.m. and were at the Green Bay airport at the stroke of 6:00. We got our boarding passes, and our luggage went through security lickity split. The ticket agent gave us our gate number and we turned to go. Rather nonchalantly I said to her, completely off-handedly, "Does it look like our flights are running on time?" She went back to the screen to look and she said, "Whoa! Your crew has been timed-out. Your flight won't be taking off till mid-morning." Whoa, indeed. Our flight outta Chicago would already be in the air, before our flight in Green Bay was even getting organized.

The ticket agent did a heroic amount of work and tracked down the luggage from security, got us onto a whole new airline and changed all of the paperwork........ long story short, we got the last two seats outta Green Bay, thru Minneapolis.... and made it safely to Austin. Our baggage arrived on the carousels -- surrounded by VERY large guitars. We got into the shuttle and the skies just opened up. I mean POURED. Torrential downpour, Texas style. Our driver had to s-l-o-w down, to manage safely, but we eventually made it to our destination, the Hyatt. And then I was expected to manually manipulate my own window coverings, no remote for the draperies here. OIY!