A Sublime Time at ASHA 2013

Chicago in November... there's nothing quite like it!  I definitely loved living there after grad school and definitely miss living there now!  ASHA 2013 did not disappoint this year and the growing attendance and quality of sessions and exhibit hall have really encouraged me to attend in the future.  I really enjoyed meeting so many of you as well!  Here's a quick recap and... a GIVEAWAY further down!  Don't miss out!

Sessions

I checked out so many sessions at ASHA this year.  I was pleasantly surprised that there were tons of large rooms ready for us at McCormick Place and access to WiFi, plugs, chairs, and good sessions.  I finally got to attend some Michelle Garcia Winner and Gloria Soto sessions which were on my ASHA bucket list.  

I had some surprisingly great sessions including my Saturday morning session about students with severe disabilities and complex communication needs in the schools.  And yes, despite those that didn't know how to turn off the camera noises on their phones, most presenters put up with 50%> of the attendees photographing important slides like these:

 Exhibit Hall

The exhibit hall was as large and overwhelming as I remember it being.  It was sort of like Disneyworld for SLPs thought.  I will admit, some vendors seemed a bit disinterested but others that I spoke with were awesome!  I visited with my CFY mentor and other friends at the EBS booth, chatted it up with Heidi at the PediaStaff booth (and got a sweet toobaloo), checked out new apps from Little Bee Speech, Expressive Solutions, Smarty Ears, and SO many more!  

I also had the privilege to meet and work with the amazing YappGuru team.  They are an insanely amazing group of people that are working to develop an amazing site that will be your go-to for app reviews for therapy and education!  Here's my YG swag that I've been sporting lately:

#SLPeeps

You know about the #SLPeeps right?!?  If not, head to twitter and check it out.  It's an online community of SLPs networking and chatting via twitter.  We talk about everything from research to our morning's latte to therapy techniques and everything in-between!  Well, at ASHA I finally got to meet some of these amazing folks!  We even got to have a "Tweetup" time where many of us got to meet for the first time face-to-face with the #SLPeeps that we tweet with regularly!  It was SO fun!  Here's a sweet picture that Tanya took during the tweetup... can you find me?

Chicago

Let's not forget the amazing host city.  It was a blast and the weather was fairly cooperative during most of the conference.  We had a blast checking out the city on Saturday after sessions were over:

However... leaving on Sunday was a bit tricky.  This was our view from the L on our way to Midway as the scary storms rolled in:

But do you remember those amazing #SLPeeps and YappGuru folks I was talking about?  Well, we had some fun running into each other throughout the airport while we were stuck there on Sunday.  It's SO amazing to know and network with SLPs from across the country!

So... would I recommend the convention?  Yes!

Would I recommend getting involved with #SLPeeps on twitter?  DEFINITELY!

Now... for a little bit of fun!  As a thank-you for all of you and to introduce you to some amazing resources available to you that I've mentioned in this post, I'm throwing a little giveaway!  Now, jump in... tweet it up, "like" some new resources, network with some SLPeeps and more!  You may be the lucky winner of a TpT Gift Certificate!!!  Thanks for following!

a Rafflecopter giveaway