Skills USA Part Three: The Fun Arrives!

Thursday started the best part of the trip: my mom and sister arrived!  I didn't have anything I had to do for the competition, so we went out to play!  First stop was the Independence, Missouri visitors center for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  As we arrived, we had to take a picture of the Church of Christ Temple across the street.   It has such an interesting shape!

Inside the LDS visitor's center, we were greeted by an adorable, cheerful Sister missionary.  We chatted for a bit then just explored on our own.

This was in a play room for kids

 Not far from the visitor's center is the future lot for the Temple in Independence.

After the visitor's center, we went to Cafe Verona.  It had a fun atmosphere and decent food. 

Then we got to tour President Truman's house.  They wouldn't let us take pictures inside, but we heard some cool stories.  His wife lived in this house until she died, then immediately gave it to the government for preservation.

Then we went to Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith and some of his companions were locked for a long, cold winter.  Revelations that became part of the Doctrine and Covenants were received in this jail.

Friday, we mainly went shopping, which was a lot of fun.  I got several cute outfits!  We tried to go to a movie, but it turned out the showing we looked up online was in 3D, which was too expensive for our tastes.  I think this actually turned out well because we got to spend more time together.

Friday night was the awards ceremony, where I found out I didn't win.  Again, it was flashy and loud.  Afterwards, we got ice cream at Baskin Robins as consolation :)

All in all, it was a fun trip, made especially so by my mom and sister coming.

Skills USA Part Two: The Competition

Tuesday, we had breakfast at 8 a.m., where we were given a written test about basic job skills and Skills USA as an organization.  Then I had quite a bit of a break before the meeting for my competition at noon.  They gave us information about what to expect and let us ask questions.  Then we took a written test about computer programming.  

After my meeting, I wandered around the "Techspo", eventually meeting up with the other student from SUU.  We wandered a bit more, waiting for our ride, and we got to see a National Guard Bike Trick show.  I'll upload a video or two at some point.  For some reason I can't get them to upload directly.

When our advisor arrived, we went to dinner.  The Utah Skills USA director recommended Jack Stack.  We found it to taste good, but to be somewhat overpriced for what it was.

Carrot Cake--it was very yummy

At orientation, they gave us 5 Utah pins to use for trading.  I collect pins, but I didn't really care about trying to get them from every state.  My main goal was the SC state pin, but I also got Texas, with which I was rather pleased for reasons some of you might know.  *wink*

  

Wednesday was my actual competition.  I was a little disappointed with my performance, but it was my first national competition.  I tried not to over-think it, but I ended up getting too worked up, anyway.  I tried to do a GUI (graphical user interface) and when I couldn't I just turned it in because I was like shaking.  Additionally, our judges never showed up, so we had make-shift judges.  The proctor mentioned something about them maybe not being able to stay the full time.  Then the judges started coming around to each person, so I felt rushed.  Anyway, I know I could have done much better, but hey, if I ever did another competition like this, I know I would do better, so I must have learned something, right?

Just a cool building downtown Kansas City

That night was the opening ceremony.  It was much crazier than I expected.  They had loud music, crazy lights, and all the states provided glow sticks and such for the participants.  I was expecting something more ceremonious, I guess.  The keynote speaker was the guy who started Ocearch.  They catch and tag great white sharks for tracking and scientific research.  Kinda crazy.

Skills USA Part One: I Got to Kansas City Last Monday

Peter and I got to the airport at 8:30--two hours before my flight was scheduled to leave, as per instructions.  It was a good thing we did.  The line was loonnng!  There were so many people going to Skills USA, most of whom were high school-ers, Peter, sweet hubby that he is, waited in line with me to get my bag checked in.  As we were getting my ticket and waiting in line, we saw a group of men dressed in Scottish clothing, carrying bag pipes and other instruments.  After I got through security, I saw them playing, likely warming up.
I got to my gate and met up with my "adviser", and we were eventually joined by the other student going from my school.  Then we settled in to wait.  As my adviser said, flying is a lot of hurry up and wait.  However, while we were waiting, I learned the reason for the Scottish bag pipe players.  One of the desk attendants announced over the intercom that there would be WWII military veterans flying today.  As they entered the terminal, the bag pipers led the way, playing "Scotland the Brave," and everyone in the area stood and applauded to honor our veterans.  It was pretty cool.

Our second flight was delayed quite a bit, so we got into Kansas City later than planned.  When we arrived, they did a little orientation thing and then we given our T-shirts, name tags, pins, and programs for the Skills USA Conference.  Then we were finally allowed to go up to our hotel rooms.

Driving into Kansas City (I had fun editing this photo in Google Plus)

Kansas River or Missouri River

National Skills USA Shirt

Utah Skills USA Shirt

I believe both shirts were designed by students, or at least members of Skills USA

I went up to my room, opened the door and found...someone else's belongings already spread throughout the room.  I closed the door and called the head of Skills USA from our school to confirm that he had gotten me a single room (he had), then I went to the room of the other student from my school to see if he had any problems with his room.  He didn't, but he allowed me to stow my stuff in his room while we both went down to find Whit, the director of Skills USA for Utah.  I explained the situation, we went upstairs to "headquarters" (the hotel room for Utah officials, I guess) and he learned that I had been given the wrong room key.  Apparently, I had originally been in the room I was given the key for, which was right near the rooms of the other two from my school, but then I had been moved.  So Whit took us down to the desk and got me a new key!  It was a lot easier to fix than I was afraid it was going to be.  I went up to my new room, and it was empty! Hooray!