VLA Conference and CNU visit

Today was an exciting day! I went to my first professional conference. It was the Virginia Library Association's annual conference, in Williamsburg. (That means we had to get up at 5 am to be sure to get there on time.) I didn't take photos there, but here is Peanut Butter with my conference badge:

He would fit inside!!! The green ribbon at the bottom says I'm a first-time attendee. I went to sessions and learned things, saw coworkers and the only two librarians I know outside my institution, and got some free swag from the vendors. (Best swag? It's a tie between the USB drive from Encyclopedia Virginia and the advance copy of a book that won't be published until next May. That may change, depending on how good the book turns out to be.)

We had lots of options of fun things to do in Williamsburg before we came home, but I was so exhausted after a long day of conferencing, we decided against going to Busch Gardens (we'll go for Christmas Town instead!) or doing a haunted walking tour of Colonial Williamsburg, but our alma mater, Christopher Newport University, was on the way home. So we stopped there and got dinner at our favorite on-campus place for old time's sake, and took some photos around campus.

This one is outside the Freeman Center, which is mostly gym and fitness center, but there is a theater in there now, and a juice/smoothie/sandwich place.

Me and Peanut Butter in front of "the fountain." The fountain has also been a planter (the powers that be got sick of students soaping it up and clogging the drains). But it's back to being a fountain, for now. The building in the background is the Trible Library.

We stop by campus whenever we can, because the place has been constantly under construction since I started there in 2004, so it's constantly changing and you never know what building will come down or go up before you get back there. On the bright side, it's a really beautiful campus now.

Bonus photo of the PB in front of the library: