Our Trip to Grennsboro, NC

Over the weekend I had the incredible opportunity to speak at the Women’s Leadership Summit, which was hosted by the Junior League of Greensboro in North Carolina.

Eddie and I have never been to Greensboro, so we were super excited to check it out and enjoy a kid-free weekend.

The Junior League graciously hosted us at the O’Henry hotel, which was a beautiful hotel that is also a member of the Southern Living Hotel Collection.

We hit more traffic than we expected, so all day Thursday (10 hours) was spent driving. We got to the hotel around 9pm. Luckily, the hotel restaurant, Green Valley Grill, was still open and we were able to have a late dinner. Eddie and I split an order of their truffle fries. Seriously awesome. The restaurant was a really fun mix of elegant and casual. The food was affordable, but they had swanky options (like tapas and lamb) too.

When we got up to our room, the Junior League had gone out of their way to make us feel welcome. There was a gift basket, fresh flowers, hand written thank you cards, and a cookbook waiting for me. How sweet is that? I was getting very used to the Southern hospitality!

I had to wake up early, so we went straight to bed after dinner.

This is where I have to confess that I was a VERY BAD BLOGGER and I forgot my camera on the day of the conference, so I have no more pictures. 🙁

On Friday morning, our plan was for Eddie to drive me to the conference center and stick around to play golf that day, since the resort where the conference was being held also had 2 golf courses. However, he woke up suffering from a horrible migraine that knocked him out for the entire day. I didn’t want to leave him stranded in the hotel without a car, so I took a cab over to the conference center and wound up being about a half an hour later than I wanted to be.

I was a little rushed with only 20 minutes or so to prepare for my presentation, but once everyone filed in, I think it went pretty well! I would estimate that there were about 50 women in my session. I spoke about collaborating with other women and starting to see each other as colleagues instead of competition in everyday life. Everyone seemed very engaged and I got some laughs and applause, so I’m chalking it up to a win.

Then I got to hear Brandi Tysinger-Temple, the CEO of Lolly Wolly Doodle, speak about how she accidentally transitioned from a stay-at-home mom to the owner of a multi-million dollar business. Brandi’s story was very inspirational to me personally because I really relate to her as a mom with an entrepreneurial spirit. I LOVED how with no business experience whatsoever, she turned the retail industry upside down and became the only successful multi-million dollar company doing business primarily through a Facebook page. Now she is manufacturing her clothes in the USA and providing over 250 jobs in her local economy and she has figured out a business model that incorporates social media and keeps clothing prices affordable. 

After that we took a break for lunch and the reveal of the Climb 365 participants. Climb 365 is a blog that is going to follow 5 women every day for an entire year as they work towards specific goals. Rebecca, one of the participants, was in my session and we were talking a little bit about her art business before anyone in the room knew she had been selected as one of the participants.

Then I think I have to say that my favorite part of the day was hearing Ashley and Jenny, the co-founders of Miss Jenny’s Pickles, give their presentation. Let me tell you, that is one dynamic duo. Jenny was hands-down the funniest speaker I have ever heard in person. And I got to taste their pickles, so I can say that they ARE really good, and you know how much I love that they don’t use any additives or preservatives. I’m definitely going to be going out of my way (ok, not that far out of my way, just down the street to a different grocery store) to buy their pickles.

They wrapped up the day with a keynote speech from Jenna Bush-Hager. She spoke about her work with UNICEF, specifically with young women with HIV and AIDS. I like Jenna a lot because she was a public school teacher in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. (I’m from Baltimore and started my teaching career in a public school just outside of D.C.) I really appreciate that even though she is pretty much a true life princess (I mean that literally, as in her family is our country’s closest thing to royalty that spans several generations), she isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and use her position to highlight social issues. She reminds me a little bit of princess Diana in that respect.

By the time the conference was wrapping up, Eddie was feeling better and he headed over to the driving range to hit a few golf balls and pick me up.

As I was leaving, someone handed me a gift bag from a local jewelry store called Fink’s. I opened it after I left and discovered that it had a $100 gift card in it! Since we were leaving the next day, we drove over and picked out small silver cross necklaces for the girls. Thanks, Fink’s! 

That night we went out to dinner at Ruth’s Chris. That’s “our place” since we had our wedding reception at the Ruth’s Chris in Baltimore. Whenever we are in a new city with a Ruth’s Chris, we go there for dinner. (We were joking that we should have chosen a less expensive place, like McDonald’s, to be “our place.”) Dinner there was amazing, though, as usual.

That night we discovered that there was a Game of Throne’s marathon on HBO. We don’t have HBO at home and we had never seen the show, but naturally we got hooked. Lucky us, when we got home we discovered that Comcast has the past seasons on demand for free for the next two weeks, so we are having Game of Thrones marathon sessions every night to get caught up.

Saturday we left at 9:30 in the morning. It took us about 10 hours to get back to Pennsylvania.

It was a short trip, but we had a great time!

P.S. In case you are wondering, like I was, it seems that The Junior League is nothing like they are portrayed in The Help.