Friday 12th - Last day of the Conference - Boys skate Grant Park!!

Friday and a massive day at the conference for me starting at 7.15am with a guest speaker at breakfast and then continuing through until 4.45pm. Being the last night the Gala started at 6.30pm and goes until 10.30pm.

Meanwhile for the boys it was breakfast and off to Grant Park.

Skating along the path through Grant Park.

 One of the many fountains in the park

A Squirrel

 Dan, the photographer, in a photo at the same fountain

One of the stages still up from Lallapalooza

 The path that runs all the way along the edge of the water for miles.

The Water Taxi coming in for a pick up.

You can hire these "Segway's" in the park. In this shot these guys are trying to sneak up on the group in front of them. They look totally weird. You see the Police on them in the street and also in the Airports. They can actually cover 24miles before needing recharging. But they do look weird!!

Deep Space Adventure!! I don't actually know what it is haha.

A shot of the city from the edge of the park. It is a great looking city.

Mermaid

Explorer Adler Store

I don't know about these but they looked good.

The boys looking very mature before we head down to the Gala Dinner. They made me proud to be their dad

Here we are at the Dinner

Janet Burton presenting

As usual the presentation is very slick and a great job was done by the RMHC Staff

Dan hamming it up just a little with the Wallabies scarf. I ended up giving mine to Fred Hill who then gave it on, with my blessing, to one of the ladies from Taiwan who he knew really wanted one. Then later on in the night that amazing man, Alan Gilmore, gave his to Fred and we were able to spend about 15 minutes with Fred and Fran, a very special time for both of us (Alan and I) .

And the winner of the Best bets award overall is... TAIWAN yeah ($25,000US)!! one of our APMEA nations. We all actually voted for the winner individually on the night with keypads!! Pretty special. The results were posted in real time on the screen that you see here. If you look closely the orange line is Taiwan. 2nd place was the Red Shoe Team.

Well that's it and we will be on the plane to LA then Sydney tomorrow!!

It has been an incredible trip and I want to thank Rohan for encouraging me to take Matt and Dan and also than Matt and Dan for being such great mates and sons.

An awesome time!!

Maybe next time Rohan and I will be able to come.

See you all soon. Chicago is a great city. 

Lots of love the Aussie Bingham's Matt, Dan and Ross xxx