I'm Conscious It Was A Great Week!

I just had THE most amazing week! I attended a Conscious Discipline Advanced Institute training on St. Simons Island, Georgia. It was a small group of about 45 educators, and we spent the week delving deeply into our own journeys with Conscious Discipline, as well as improving our skills at using it with children. Conscious Discipline is an adult-first approach to social-emotional learning that was developed by Dr Becky Bailey. The week certainly made for a terrific list of thankfuls!

First and foremost, I am thankful to Nikki, my preschool director, for introducing me to CD and for sending me to trainings, especially this one. They were long days, but they were filled to bursting with learning and growing!

Nikki, my co-worker Alyssa, and I flew to St. Simons last Saturday. I'm thankful for my husband for being our Uber driver to the airport at the crack of dawn (truly, it was BEFORE the crack of dawn) AND for picking us up a week later at what turned out to be way to close to the next day's crack of dawn than i would have liked, but more on that later.

Bright-eyed and bushy tailed for the trip!

Our flight from Springfield to Dallas wasn't bad; a little turbulence as we approached DFW, but not awful (btw I hadn't flown since 2010). Then as we were lining up to board for our flight to Jacksonville, Florida, it was announced that we were changing planes, as there was a HOLE in the plane we were to take, and the pilot was not satisfied with the repair that had been made. We then had to rush from A concourse to C concourse (if you've ever been to DFW, you will understand the effort this requires), and board THAT plane. And the turbulence we had on arrival? They were a dress rehearsal for the turbulence ON STEROIDS that we had for the first 20 minutes after take-off. I was pretty convinced the plane was going to explode or drop from the sky (or both), but it didn't and we made it to Jacksonville in one piece.

We stayed at a magical place called Epworth by the Sea, a Methodist retreat center on the Brunswick River where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean on land that once was a cotton plantation. The grounds are breathtakingly gorgeous, with massive trees draped with Spanish moss and a view of the water. And you don't have to be part of a private event to stay there! It is open to the public, and the rooms are lovely. The rates are also considerably lower than they are elsewhere on the island. 

View from my balcony

Foggy morning

We arrived a day early, so we could spend a little time exploring the island before we got down to business. We had yummy fresh shrimp Saturday night at a place called Iguanas (and yes, I, too, would have expected it to be Mexican food with that name). On Sunday, we went back down to the village and toured the lighthouse and its museum. The original lighthouse was built in 1810 and was destroyed in 1861 to prevent Federal troops from using its beacon during the Civil War. It was rebuilt in 1872 and includes a caretaker's home and is still sending out a beacon that can be seen 23 miles out into the sea. We climbed up the 129 steps (made for a time when people had much smaller feet) and bravely stood at the top without falling off.

The lighthouse at St. Simons Island

The view from the top

Night view from near the pier

While we were on top of the lighthouse, we talked to a woman who recommended a restaurant for lunch. We not only took her up on the place, but also on her recommendation for the pecan-crusted chicken tenders. If you're ever on St. Simons Island, drop into Barbara Jean's for a meal. You can thank me some time between when the basket of hot rolls, jalapeno cornbread, and pumpkin bread appears on your table and when you find that each chicken strip is the size of an entire chicken breast and you have four of them on your plate.

Hungry enough?

My almost-cousin Debbie and her husband Mike live on the island, and I got to visit them! Debbie's dad once introduced MY dad as "my wife's sister's husband's sister's husband". I'll let you work that out on your own, but suffice it to say that while we aren't related by blood, we do share the same cousins, and since ohana means family, well, I consider us family. I spent Sunday evening at their beautiful home that incidentally was on a small lagoon THAT HAD AN ALLIGATOR IN IT. Mike claims alligators are more scared of us than we are of them (yeah, right) and dive into the water when they see a person, but I'm not buying that 100%. And no, I didn't SEE an alligator (it was dark), but the VERY NEXT MORNING, a neighbor saw one sunning himself and sent Debbie a picture of it.

We did not dress alike on purpose.

Gator young'un

The training started early Monday morning. At CD events, the table you choose to sit at becomes your table, and the others at the table become your event family, and we sure ended up with a terrific one. Bonus was that our "table helper" was Master Instructor Vicky Hepler, who had been the presenter when we attended the week-long CD Institute last summer. What luck!

This school year, I have been lucky enough to have a Conscious Discipline coach come into my classroom a couple times and work with me, and I was even luckier that my coach, Amy Speidel, was the presenter at this CD training. Amy and I found we had a lot in common when we first met, and it was delightful to get the opportunity to learn even more from her! On Thursday evening, Amy announced that we were going to have a little surprise, and instead of a LITTLE surprise, it was a GIGANTIC SURPRISE of the very best kind: Dr. Becky Bailey came up from Orlando to meet us and to present to us on Friday morning. Swoon!

With Alyssa, Nikki, Dr. Bailey, and Amy

All too soon, our training was completed and our week had come to an end, but lucky us, we stayed one more day AFTER the training ended and continued with exploration, this time, visiting beaches. St. Simons Island is not known for its beaches, but we found a little strip near the lighthouse and walked along it. We got to see dolphins swimming just off shore, as well as see an ENORMOUS cargo ship carrying around 1,000 cars inside it to points unknown. Saturday morning, after checking out of Epworth, we drove to Jekyll Island to visit Driftwood Beach, which has a post-apocalyptic feel to it, then spent some time at Oceanview Beach (more dolphins seen). We then drove to Amelia Island for a quick stop at the beach there (which was the only one with an abundance of shells) before returning the rental car and beginning our journey home.

Driftwood Beach

So, the journey home was not without defugalty, but we made it home IN SPITE OF THE LAST PLANE BEING HELD TOGETHER WITH SCOTCH TAPE. And the plane change. And the connecting city change. And the fact that the new flight (back to DFW) was two hours later than the one to Charlotte had been scheduled for, but we dodged a bullet there, because on THAT flight, it was announced that there would not be bathrooms available and they'd better go before they boarded the plane. And the LAAAAATE arrival in Springfield of 12:30 am and not getting home until 2:00 am. 

Jacksonville airport

Am I exhausted? Yes.

But am I ready for the week? Also yes, because I have new tools to use with my class and a bag full of seashells for them!