a little continuing education and a lot of fun.

Last week, some coworkers and I were able to attend a CME conference in Atlanta. So, Wednesday after work, Tammy and I packed into her car and headed down to our hotel. She has a GPS so we were following it to our hotel. We turned were the GPS told us to go and headed toward what looked like it could be a hotel. As we got closer, I turned to Tammy and said. "I don't think this is right. This looks like office building more than hotel". So, we parked and walked into the closest building to see if we could find our hotel. We made our way through the revolving door and headed to the front desk only to find out that we were not where we needed to be.



So, we piled back into our car and headed the way that the man at the desk told us to go. We stopped at a hotel to ask again where our hotel was. While I was trying and failing to find an open door, Tammy was calling our hotel to see if we could get some help. I ended up asking a man having a smoking break outside of the holiday inn if he knew where our hotel was. He told me some rough directions and I jumped back into the car to find out that the person at our hotel thought that we were about a mile away from where we needed to be. He was telling Tammy this as we rounded the corner and saw our hotel right in front of us...good thing 1 mile away actually ment right around the corner.

As we pulled up to the hotel, a man came up to our window and asked us if we wanted to self park or have valet parking. Being the cheap people that we are, we opted for self parking. Lesson learned...when given the option of valet parking when there are just girls involved always opt for valet.

Tammy and I pulled into the parking garage. The man we had talked to in front of the hotel told us to park on level 2 or 3. So when we entered the parking deck we did what any normal person would do....we turned and went up to the next level...ummm that was a mistake because we ended up on a level with a dead end. Apparently, the numbers went up as you went down...weird, I know.

So after I directed Tammy to a safe place to turn around we headed down into the bowels of the hotel. We secured a parking spot and headed up through the narrow corridors to the hotel lobby. We checked in and asked the front desk if they had any carts so that we could wheel our stuff back to our room. We were told to ask out front. As we were walking toward the front we saw 2 luggage arts sitting there and so we grabbed one and headed back down to our car. We had parked on the second level, but when we got off of the elevator, our car was no where to be seen. We got back into the elevator and went to the 1st floor...and there we found our car, parked on level 2...huh?!?

Once we got our luggage packed onto the cart, we headed up to our room. I was joking with Tammy as we got on the elevator in the lobby. I turned to her and said, "now all we have to do is find our room" I wish that I had known the irony of that statement before I said it. We got off of the elevator on our floor and had to weave through the maze of hallways to find our room. I was joking with Tammy that we should leave a trail of bread crumbs so that we could find our room again.



Once safely in our room, we called our husbands, freshened up, and went down to the front desk to ask if there was a place to eat within safe walking distance. We were told about a shuttle that could take us to the mall across the street. So, we took the shuttle over to the Mall and grabbed dinner at the mall food court. We ended up eating some oriental food. While we were eating, the mall stores started closing around us.

We headed outside to the entrance where the shuttle had dropped us off and called the shuttle service to come and pick us up. We then sat down on a bench to wait for our ride. we waited....and waited...and I REALLY had to go to the bathroom...I started debating my options....I walked back toward the mall, which was by this time locked....well, that's not an option hmmm. There were of course the trash cans out side the mall if things got desperate....bad option. There was a restaurant right next to where we were waiting...much better option. So, I decided to risk missing the shuttle and left Tammy to fend for herself while I ran to use the bathroom at the restaurant next to us. On the way to the restaurant, I spotted a porta potty. So, I changed directions only to discover that it was locked...ugh, but likely a blessing in disguise.


I headed into the restaurant and was searching for the bathroom only to discover that it was, of course, on the second floor of the restaurant. I rushed back out of the restaurant back to where Tammy was afraid that we had missed the shuttle. Nope....still not there. So, I called the service again. Apparently the shuttle that was supposed to pick us up had run out of gas....OUT OF GAS!!! They were sending another shuttle and it should be to there to pick us up in 10 minutes. We waited for a while longer and a taxi pulled up. Thinking that maybe this was what the hotel had sent for us, I went and opened the taxi door...nope, false alarm. As our hotel was literally across the road and we had waited for an hour by this time, Tammy and I decided to walk to our hotel. We had taken the shuttle to begin with because Tammy's husband didn't think that it was a good idea for two women to be walking around at night by themselves...but we decided that it was worse for us to sit at the mall all night waiting for a shuttle that perhaps would never come.


Tammy was on the phone with her sister and I was taking photo documentation of our journey so that there would be witnesses and evidence in the chance that we might fall victim to some sort of foul play.



As we approached the hotel Tammy asked me what I was going to say to the hotel management when we got back. I am NOT a confrontational person...So, I let Tammy know that I was probably NOT the right person for that job. Tammy and I walked up to the front desk and I let Tammy talk to the manager while occasionally throwing in my input. The manager apologized and gave us coupons for complimentary breakfast.

Yea!! One problem solved. We had been trying to figure out what we were going to do about breakfast and this solved our problem for us.

So, Thursday am, we got up, got ready, and then headed down to breakfast. They had a buffet set up with a fresh fruit bar and hot breakfast dishes. Tammy and I sat down at the end of a really long table and ate breakfast.



Once finished with our breakfast, we headed down to our first lecture of the day. Our friend and coworker Caroline who had been staying with family in town came and met us at the first lecture. The first series of lectures was about Autism and they were very interesting and informative.

After these lectured were finished, we took a break for lunch. So, Caroline, Tammy and I headed over to the Mall across the street to grab something to eat. We ended up eating at the food court so that we had more options. I had some chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, and broccoli for lunch from the farmer's basket. Once we finished lunch, we headed back to the hotel for our afternoon lecture series.






We were all signed up to go to the oral health lectures in the afternoon. Recently Georgia has started to reimburse pediatric offices for fluoride varnishes. This set of lectures was one of the main reasons that we were planning to attend this conference. We were really disappointed in the lectures. We were hoping that the lectures were going to be a lot more informative about guidelines for fluoride varnish, but that was sadly lacking. The first lecture was an interesting overview of oral health and seemed to be a really good set up for the last lecture about Fluoride use.



Once that lecture was over, we took a quick break for refreshments. They had yogurt parfaits and trail mix for us to eat. I chose the parfait while Tammy opted for the trail mix. So, as we settled in for the next lecture, Tammy handed me a long brownish/black piece of...something. I looked at it and handed it back to her asking, "did you just give me a scab?"Tammy started laughing...and crying...which was made funnier to me because the lecture was starting and she was trying to do all of her laughing silently.


Honestly watching Tammy try to keep her laughter in was the most enjoyable part of the last lecture. We were really disappointed with the second lecture. The Lecturer was monotone and cynical and seemed to be unhappy to be at the conference. He also had conflicting views on Fluoride and its benefits when compared to the lecturer before him. Making the oral health lectures pretty unhelpful for us.

With the last of our lectures done for the day, Tammy and I parted ways with Caroline and headed back to our hotel room to change clothes before going to dinner. We decided to go shopping at the mall for a little while before heading to eat. We live in a pretty small little town and so it was fun to get to shop at stores that we don't have at home.







After shopping for a little while, we decided to go to Cheesecake factory to grab dinner. YUM. We both got Chicken di pana and we got a slice of tiramisu cheesecake to share. We were so full after we finished dinner that we got our cheesecake to go.



We headed back to our hotel to call our husbands and then sat and talked for a while before digging into the cheesecake and then heading to bed...there's nothing like eating a few 100 calories right before bed.

Tammy's husband and she hide this little token in eachother's stuff and she found it hidden in her suitcase the second night that we were at our hotel.

After a day of lectures, you tend to get a little silly...I was trying to rock the 80's look.

Friday am we headed down to the conference for our second day of lectures. They actually had breakfast provided the second day which was really nice. We enjoyed several really informative and interesting lectures in the am before lunch.


There was a lunch awards ceremony that we attended. I was actually really surprised at how nicely it was decorated and how good the food was. It was not a lunch that you could sit and hit chat with those around you because they were having a presentation throughout the whole meal, but I enjoyed myself and the meal.





After lunch, we headed in for the last lectures of the day.For the most part these were really interesting. My mind went a little numb and my blood started to curdle a little when they were talking about the changes coming down the pike for health care...ugh....DO NOT get me started!! Carolyn was smart and left during this lecture. Tammy and I stuck it out until the end.

After the says lectures were over, Tammy and I headed down to her car so that I ould get my luggage. We had decided to just go to Thursday and Friday's lectures. So, Tammy was headed home. I was supposed to be meeting Zack because we were going to be going to Midevil Times for dinner.

Thankfully it was not too long after Tammy left that Zack showed up. We made it to our dinner and had a great time...I'll save that story for another post.

I did end up going back down to the lectures on Saturday, because Zack ended up having to go in for Jury duty on Saturday and there were a few interesting lectures that I wanted to go to.

It was a very informative and fun weekend....I'm sure that Tammy and I will always laugh about things that we experienced and shared that weekend.