Monkey Platter Update and notes

New activity, if the weather is nice on Day 1 at my house (November 10): Cutting gallons of water in half with a sword. If you want to. Pictures of it having been done previously are linked below. We'll have safety people and coaches for those interested. You'll get several chances.
"Water My Yard with Swords" day
and we did it another time, on Kirby's birthday:
Kirby's birthday

For those of you who know for sure you're coming (besides Beth, who's speaking, and Lee, who will be filming and interviewing, and Hema, the guest of honor), I need to pay for the conference room soon, so please register in advance. If the cost of the room is covered (it's $360 or so) by Thursday, those who've stayed at the Radisson can request a refund of their family's portion. You can send me a check or use paypal.

The water park isn't finished but we can have a pool party that afternoon (Thursday).

Each day there's a park involved, with playground equipment. Tuesday it will just be for playing, because we can eat at my house.
Wednesday we'll eat at the park across from the museum.
Thursday we'll eat two blocks from the hotel, an easy walk.

I'll provide kid-readable maps to those parks, so try to let the kids find the place if you're patient enough. It will be more fun.

There will be mom-readable maps to the main sites before time. It's easy to get from the hotel to my house by bus, and I'll have directions and times before the day. The hotel will run a shuttle van to Explora and back on Wednesday for anyone staying at the hotel without a car, so as it turns out, people don't have to have a car for this! The airport will get people to The Radisson, and other things are easy.

The $10 is really for the use of the pool Thursday. I need to pay for the room, and only those registered for the conference can be there or in the pool. Bummer about the water park. I'm disappointed and they're embarrassed, but the hotel rates are still pretty good and we have the room for Beth and me to speak and for our Q&A session! Lee Stranahan will be there that day, and maybe other days, recording some of the talks or discussion, and maybe talking to some of you if you want. He and Lauren are unschooling their kids, and Lee's documenting people's experiences with and thoughts on unschooling.

To make it easier for people to add suggestions and ask questions, I'm going to go ahead and make a blog for this, and will start with most of this note.