Friday and District Conference at the weekend

Up early with bags all packed including additional suitcases.
And off we went to the Naval Academy to watch the graduation ceremony. This was a real treat as this is the only academy in the whole of the US for the entry level training for naval recruits. 936 graduated with a heap of wonderful pomp and pageantry and we witnessed it all from the dias, and apparently graduation occurs every week! It was a neat experience.

Then off we went to Lincolnshire and the Rotary District Conference. Its all a bit of a blur but we joined the Paul Harris Luncheon and then presented in the afternoon and then had pre dinner drinks with the District Governor before sitting down to dinner with the Inbound GSE Team who arrive in NZ from Illinois in April 2009.
Friday evening the kiwis enjoyed wine tasting and swing dance in the Hospitatliy Rooms before finally getting to bed about 2.00am ish.
Saturday was bliss, we wore mufti, , I got my staples out, caught some ZZZZ's, went shopping (oh and how we shopped!) and then got our sparkly outfits on for the banquet dinner. Oh and by gosh there was dancing!! Some latin dancers taught us salsa and meringue and swept us off our feet and we finally got to bed about 2.00am ish!
Up early Sunday and Cheryl and I went to Willowcreek this mega church in the area. Its 33 years old, and it was a fantstic experience. Normally a congregation of 7000, the 9.00am service was only 4500 (!), and included a full rock band, 11 piece orchestra and afterwards you could get lunch in the food hall or return to your car (one of 1500 parked outside). Actually although it was a wonderful service and suprisingly personal for something so big.




This afternoon, Wayne, Brent and I got to meet Dan Seals, a Democrat Congressman trying for office and a close colleague of Barack Obama. There is a huge amount of support in this area for Obama and gosh its going to be interesting to see whats going to happen at the elections.



This evening, i met my host for the week, we've had a quick meal and i'm off to bed now before another busy week begins. This time though, it is our last week and all of a sudden we feel like we want everything to slow down as we don't want this great trip to end and we definitely won't want to say goodbye to the wonderful friends we've met.