Proud daughter in Chicago...

Last weekend my mom and I went to Chicago for the National Conventient Store Show.  First I'll give you a brief history of why we were there.  My mom owns a convenient store and sells Hunt Brothers pizza where they make pizzas from scratch.  A few months ago Hunt Brothers chose her and two other people in the nation to do a feature on for their ad in Convenient Store Magazine.  They came and interviewed my mom and did a photo shoot.  Hunt Brothers was displaying my moms ad at the National show in Chicago.  As appreciation to her for allowing them to use her material, Hunt Brothers paid for her and I to go to the show!  That is how we ended up in Chicago.  Here is the front of the building.  

Here is mom's part in the magazine.  It was blown up and hung on the wall.  They were also handing out fliers like this with quote and info.  The wording on the right side is a quote from her.  I made her take a picture next to her picture.  She was embarassed but I was so proud of her!!

Here is a close up of her picture.  Because of the flash on my camera you can't really read the writing on the right.  It says "Shelly Newton, Sooner Superette, Hinton, OK"

Everyone there treated her like royalty!  They all knew who she was because of her ad and they all wanted to meet her.  She met the president of the company, who asked her to come back and do an interview with him and the Convenient Store Magazine.  She did and was the only convenient store representative for Hunt Brothers.  They picked her out of all of their 7800 stores in the nation!!   Can you tell I'm proud?  Here we are in front of their display.  

We were only there for a short period of time but we made time for some fun stuff.  Sunday night after the convention we went downtown and ate at Rainforest Cafe.  

Here I am at 23 weeks!  The first picture my mom took of me was in front of an elephant.  I laughed when I thought about the irony of taking a pregnancy picture in front of an elephant!  I decided to post the one in front of the aquarium instead.  

Monday morning we slept in late and then went to a local mall for a couple of hours before catching our flight home.  I was glad we got to sleep in because my mom doesn't get to rest at home.  She works way to much and it took a weekend to Chicago for her to get some rest!  It's also a good thing we had some extra sleep because our night was interrupted at 12:45 am by loud speakers announcing "There is an emergency in the building.  You must evacuate.  You can not use the elevators.  You must use the stairs."  Of course I was FREAKING out but I am the paranoid one.  My mom said she would have stayed in bed if I wouldn't have made her get ready and go outside.  Here we are all waiting outside the hotel.  

Our hotel was smoke free and apparently someone was smoking inside one of the rooms and set off the alarm.  We did have to wait outside in the cold night for 20 minutes but it was better to be safe than sorry.  We had a great trip and I am so glad I got to go with her!!  I am very blessed to have a very close relationship with my mom.  We only live an hour away but we don't get to see each other that often.  It was good for us to catch up and just spend the weekend the two of us!  I am so thankful for and proud of my mom!