Graduation and HOME!

Now I finally get to update you on the last few days at Bergin U. and my trip home. Graduation was held on Saturday. It was a graduation for seminar students as well as three clients we had trained the last two weeks of our seminar. It was 1 part fun: 9 parts stressful. As students we organized and ran graduation. We all had speaking and/or demos for the ceremony so we couldn't quite sit back and enjoy the ride. The only part we did not run was the recognition and handing-out-of-certificates for us by the staff. It was really nice-each staff member spoke about two seminar students-they took the time to tell a bit about us and our experiences before we received our certificates. The ceremony (mostly) went off without a hitch and then we had a nice dinner afterwards catered by Bonnie's husband Jim (BBQ - good but not as good as North Carolina BBQ!) Goodbyes to clients, friends, dogs and fellow students were very hard-we've made some great friendships and we had been through so much together. I've already told Jason that we'll be doing a world tour in the coming years...Australia to see Jenny, New Zealand to see Grant, Korea to see Sunyoung, Maui to see Elis......

Jenny, Kyria and I left on Sunday around 10:30 to catch a shuttle bus to take us to San Francisco airport (2 hour ride on the bus) with another friend, Amy. We dropped off Amy and then had to catch a shuttle to our hotel-which we couldn't find and no one seemed to know how to tell us where to find it...finally after discovering that Kyria and I couldn't check bags earlier than 8 hours before our flight (we were scheduled to leave at 11:10 pm) and an hour of searching and calling the hotel, we found the pick up/drop off location for hotel shuttle busses. We got to the hotel and Jenny checked in (she was staying an extra day). We tried to get to our room but the elevator was broken (mind you, we're toting multiple 50-60 lb suitcases as well as Sally the service-dog-in-training that came home with us). We finally found a bell hop who couldn't fit all our bags on his trolley so Kyria and I waited with my luggage while Jenny went with the bell hop (she told him room 255 and he kept repeating 355 as he left us). Jenny found out they has given her a smoking room-she complained and they gave her an upgrade and a discount. Good, right? Wrong, the upgrade only had one bed (we had another friend coming down to stay the night with Jenny). At this point, the service had been so horrible, Jenny checked out and we went to lunch. Thankfully the hotel did store our luggage so we could eat. During lunch, Jenny got a reservation from the Hyatt-just down the street. The only problem is that they couldn't come get us and, of course, the bad hotel wouldn't take us there. We had to lug all of our bags (me-one big bag and one little bag, the big one with a broken handle and bad wheels, Kyria-two big bags, two little bags, Jenny-more bags then I can count.....and Sally) down the street and across to the other side to the Hyatt. We were a sight to behold! By the time we finally got there it was going on 4 o'clock-we were exhausted and collapsed on the beds in the hotel room, watched junk tv, took showers and tried to recuperate. So much for our big day in San Francisco! Kyria and I left for the airport at 9 pm to catch our flight. Jenny came with to say good bye-after a few problems with over weight luggage, long lines, a teary fair well to Jenny, crazy security, and more long lines, Kyria, Sally and I were on our way home. We flew together to Chicago where we had a short layover and parted: Kyria and Sally went on the D.C. and I went to Charlotte. I arrived in at 9am Charlotte time and had another teary and WONDERFUL reunion with Fiona and Jason. Ahhhhh-it's good to be home!!!

Keep checking in on the blog-I will continue blogging about paws4people, the upcoming service dogs I'll be working (I get my next dog in a month), Alderson, Sally and any other adventures coming my way......

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