7 Quick Whats!?

1. Um, what? #7QTs moved!? Clearly I have been immersed in the SEEK planning world for way to long...but here I am! I'm popping in to say hi today because I've missed you guys, and I've missed writing.


2. I haven't written since October. Which is really weird. Life has been a whirlwind of sleep, work, sleep, work, repeat for the past two months. One of those reasons is because we exceeded our goal of 8,000 attendees...the last time I checked we had about 9,400 people coming to SEEK! Can you believe it!? I definitely cannot. God is so good - none of this happened because of us.


3. In TEN DAYS I will be in Nashville. I don't know how I feel about that! Excited, weird, nervous, hopeful, and like I'm going to throw up. Fun Fact: Jen is one of our main speakers! And I get to run production during her session! It is going to be awesome.


4. One of the strangest things about this job is the timing. I'm headed home for Christmas tomorrow, but I will pretty much be working straight through SEEK. Today I'm grateful that my family is understanding of the demands of this job and that my boss lets us work remotely.


5. My brother is coming to SEEK, so that's cool. It's strange to think how significant of a part of my life planning events is, but no one in my family has ever attended one I've planned. So I'm excited for him to see what I do, but I'm more excited for him and all other 9,399 people to experience the conference.


6. I would like to shoutout to Emily, Carley, Steph, & Carol for being really good friends this week. I love you guys. Additional shoutout to Murph who I get to see in the AM for brunch.


7. I picked up this book at the store on Sunday. Because I'm, well, Crazy Busy, I have only read the first chapter. And I already recommend it. I think it's going to be just what I need.

Hop on over to, um, This Ain't The Lyceum, for more quick takes!

7QTs on Traveling to 10 Cities in 8 Days

If you were to count airports, I was in 10 different cities these past 8 days. Woof. Please enjoy the following quick takes that chronicle my cross country journey this week.

--- 1 ---

City #1: Leawood, Kansas. My whole family was home for a hot second with enough time to go to lunch on Saturday. It was great to be back Friday & Saturday afternoon to spend time with those that were home. I didn't do much, so it was a nice, relaxing way to start this cross country adventure.

--- 2 ---

City #2: Kansas City, Missouri. Megan, a friend from Drake, lives in town, so I got to spend a bit of time with her Friday night. Also, she's watching my cat before my allergic roommate moves out, so that was fun.

--- 3 ---

City #2: Lincoln, Nebraska. Read about this trip in more detail here. This trip was filled with ALL THE NOSTALGIA. It was great.

City #3: Omaha, Nebraska. AIRPORT.

City #4: Chicago, Illinois. AIRPORT & being reunited with Carol!

--- 4 ---

City #5: Nashville, Tennessee. SEEK 2015 is a mere 8.5 months away. Crazy. I am so glad I was finally able to see the space so I could stop picturing the Hyatt in Dallas for this event. The Gaylord Opry is HUGE and has three giant gardens indoors. It's amazing. I could start to picture what it would look like with 8,000 college students bustling through there. Our CSM, Banquet Manager, & Sales Manager were great - it is always nice to have a face to all the emails you're getting.

The best part was spending time in the exhibit hall with EideCom, our production company, and the marketing team brainstorming ways to implement the theme and the feel into the set and the space. I am so excited to keep working on it and to see what happens when it comes together. #whatmovesyou

Something I don't think I'll ever get quite used to as a meeting planner is the VIP status the hotels treat you with. When we check in at the Gaylord, they took us into a room called Celebrity Services. What!? I am not a celebrity. Regardless, it's fun to be treated well every now and then, even though it can get awkward when they discover our whole team is under 30.

City #6: Atlanta, Georgia: AIRPORT.

City #7: Ft. Myers, Florida: AIRPORT.

--- 5 ---

City #8: Ave Maria, Florida. We returned to the tiny, tiny town near Naples to prepare for New Staff Training (NST). Not only was the trip fun, it was essential to the success of NST. For the first time we had the Event Managers (the events team), the Collegiate Outreach Representative, Formation, the Committee Heads, and Ave Maria together in one place to talk about NST. We toured, we planned, and we had a lot of meetings. But mainly, we had epic golf cart races from Queen Mary's Pub back to Xavier Hall. Brian, Cait, & I totally beat Christina, JP, & Mark. This team is great, and I think we are going to ROCK NST2014.

--- 6 ---

City #9: Indianapolis, Indiana: AIRPORT. When we got off the plane I mentioned to Christine that every single time I've been in this airport the last few years I've run into someone I know. To which she responded, "well, today is the day that will change." Such a naysayer. Approximately 10 minutes later we were waiting for our lunch and Paige, a former camper of mine strolled by. I had her in Teton in 2011 when she was a baby sophomore. Now she's 18 and graduating in 19 days! I'm old.

Paige is Mt. Wister in this picture.

City #10: Denver, Colorado: HOME.

--- 7 ---

You know you've been on a site visit when the last 25 pictures on your phone are of different meeting spaces.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7QTs on Camping, Reading, and Spontaneous Piercings

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Tomorrow, I will have been back in Colorado for a whole week for the first time in what feels like forever. And I'm not leaving the state until April 17. A whole month of stability. I forgot what this feels like. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself now that I'm not traveling. Maybe I can finally get unpacked from all these travels and moving.

--- 2 ---

On Tuesday, Carol & I were spontaneous. Well, as spontaneous as you can be when you sent an outlook calendar invite the day before. We told Christina of our adventures the next day & she sent out this email to our team:

"Let's play two truths and a lie...

1. Michelle got her eyebrow pierced.

2. Michelle got her ear's triple pierced.

3. Carol got her cartilage pierced."

Christine guessed #2 was the lie, Zach tweeted "THIS IS TOO HARD," and Brenda guessed that someone actually got a giant tattoo. Any guesses?!

--- 3 ---

My team is about to start reading this book and I cannot wait.

I'm also really scared of it. I feel like it is going to kick me in the pants, nonstop. When we read 7 Habits of a Highly Effective Person, it transformed the way we plan our weeks and interact with our work. I'm interested to see how this next book will change the way we interact with each other.

--- 4 ---

I have another cross-country adventure coming up in a month. Part of being an event planner means going on site visits. Which I think is just so fun! You get to see the space, meet the staff, and start to visualize what your next event is actually going to look like. So our team is doing two site visits in one week. First we're headed to Nashville to check out the Gaylord Opry. I'm excited to stop visualizing the Hyatt Regency in Dallas and actually learn the names of the ballrooms at the Gaylord! Then we're headed to Ave Maria, Florida with all of the committee heads to rev up for summer training! Site visits with the team are so fun, and I can't wait for SO MUCH QUALITY TIME.

--- 5 ---

Speaking of adventure, I want to go camping so bad right now. Seriously. Hurry up and turn into spring, Colorado so I can sleep outside. For some reason my team has been talking a lot about tents and camping this week, and we recently learned that Christina has never actually been camping. When she was a girl scout, they set up tents with persian rugs. What!? It reminded Carol and me of this:

image via.

--- 6 ---

Answer to two truths and a lie: I did NOT get my eyebrow pierced! I'm mainly confused as to why Christina and Christine thought this would be something that I would do. I'd appreciate the insight. haha.

--- 7 ---

Next week is the saddest week of my entire time on the events team. Carol is moving back to Illinois so she can get married (dumb). I will be protesting this move every step of the way.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!