Live and Learn moments, the final year:

This was the last Kelly Lovejoy-produced Live and Learn conference. It was my fifth Live and Learn. It was a bittersweet week. There were several fantastic tributes created to Kelly that included pictures from all of the other years' conferences. And the people who were not there this year created a palpable void, for me anyway. But I did meet so many interesting and peaceful parents, reunited with other amazing people and, most importantly, the kids had a blast.

The talent show is always a huge highlight. This year was particularly great. Jesse danced to "Mamma Mia" and had the audience doing the wave for him at the end.

The above boy is the world's next Bob Dylan. He was an amazing performer and lyricist and he brought down the house. I know that I am going to be glad to have so many pictures of him one day, to be able to show that I knew him back when...
Broc and Ben brought the soul to the night.
Above is Camille. She is quite a talented young tap dancer and one of the sweetest six year old girls I've ever met. I was lucky enough to get her as my fairy godchild in the drawing so I got to give her tokens of my esteem.
One of the highlights of the talent show is watching all the kids who gather on the floor, close to the stage. It's not just the little ones. When Fire asked all of the girls to join her on stage to dance, Gillen always leaped up there as well. Who wouldn't follow Fire, anywhere?

Gillen had a good turnout for his hemp friendship bracelet "funshop". Abbi and Alec Traaseth came and brought lots of other cool teenagers with them, which was really fun for him. The picture below shows Emma Fuller and her oh so loving mom, Beth, whose Peaceful Partnership talk was fantastic. As I told her, she could talk for an hour about paper clips and I would be glued to every word. She is a talented speaker.

Max, throwing his whole body into the bracelet making, as he does with everything. He is such a talented, self-taught dancer. I could watch him break dance for hours.

I didn't take as many pictures this year. I was too busy listening, and talking. But I did bring my camera to the beginning of the Masquerade Ball, before I started singing karaoke.... Here are some of my favorites:

This first one is of my favorite couple, Abbi and Nic, who looked a lot, that night, like the main characters from The Princess Bride:Cameron morphed very persuasively into Hunter S. Thompson!
Gillen made his mask at Robyn's mask-making funshop:

Kelli T. :
Alec:Above are Kyra, Alec and Tim. Below are Marie Antoinette (Mindy) and Little Bo Peep (Sophie).

Joseph :Duncan Lovejoy, and his dad.

It was an eventful week, proceeded by many adventures in the mountains the week before. I am tired, deeply tired, but grateful.