If you’ve followed me on Facebook or Twitter, you know I had an amazing time at the National Marfan Foundation conference.

We flew in on Wednesday afternoon because I wanted to maximize my time with everyone. I’d been planning a dinner for 35 of my closest friends for the past couple of months, to be held a couple of hours after our plan landed. Wouldn’t you know that once we hit our layover in Denver, the flight attendants told us there was a strong possibility of our flight being diverted to Dallas due to the storms in Houston? I said “Um, I don’t think so. I have spent too long planning this dinner; I HAVE to be there!” And wouldn’t you know? The weather listened to me and we made it into Houston right on time!

Granted, a huge storm had just hit, the aftereffects of which left us all very wet. But, the dinner went off well and I loved seeing everyone. A casual bystander wouldn’t have realized that it had been a year since we’d seen each other, and that some of the group members had never met any of us, so easy did we fall into conversation. I got to meet one of my girlfriends in person for the first time! We’ve been emailing and chatting on the phone for almost two years and I was so glad she and her husband could join us.

Back at the hotel, a couple of parents had purchased adjoining rooms for their kids, so they could have space to talk into all hours of the night without disturbing the adults (and believe me: the teens had a mission to get NO sleep the entire weekend). We had a surprise birthday party for one of the boys and Menininho had a great time. He very carefully moved everyone’s shoes from one end of the room to the other and back again. And again. And again. Hotel security was only called twice to tell the kids to settle down. I went to bed early, about 1 am, because I knew I’d need sleep to get through the next 4 days.

Stay tuned for the next segment in the recap tomorrow!