I recently had the pleasure of attending the Nannypalooza conference in Philadelphia. I was lucky enough to share the experience with several other CincyNanny members including my sister and business partner Susie as well as Greta of Project Momma, My dear friends Molly (who you probably recognize from all of her amazing help on Hilda projects), Trisha and Judy. All of these ladies are incredible assets to our nanny community and I had so much fun learning from them and more than 150 other nannies over the weekend. Nannypalooza is an annual professional nanny conference designed for nanny networking, education, community and fun. I have attended a few and I can’t say enough great things about the experience, education and community that I take away from it each time. After each conference I return home with renewed inspiration, new ideas and knowledge to apply to my job and family. O benefits too! I come home with tons of new play and learning ideas. And I have even more boundary and discipline tactics. Conferences are surprisingly affordable (especially if you can share a hotel room or split transportation with others) and can be written off as business expenses. You are enriching your abilities that you employ everyday at work! I also have som much fin seeing some of the same faces from other professional conferences and I’ve made so many friends from attending things like this. I’m so grateful for all of these women who support me professionally and as friends. We also are so luck to have great sponsors who believe in the Nanny community. Thanks to all of the companies and nanny groups that support Nannypalooza! I wish I had taken more pictures! Next year’s Nannypalooza is in Orlando! Don’t miss it.

Above: Susie, Molly, Myself, Judy, Greta and Trisha.

Below: a “funny face” picture… I missed the memo.

We spent our days building into each other, sharing nanny tactics and secrets, attending sessions on all kinds of topics. There were tons to choose from and our group often split up to go to sessions on different topics. I chose sessions on Speech Language Development, Montessori in the Home, Communicating with Parents and more all about kids, nannies and professionalism. I also was fortunate enough to be a part of the Nanny Mom Panel where I got to speak about my experiences of bringing O to work with me, maintaining 2 households and finding balance.

 

Don’t worry… it wasn’t all business. We also had sometime to explore Philly. And all of Philly’s food. Who knew it was a foodie gem? We stopped at Green Eggs Cafe for a decadant breakfast feast. We so needed that after a late night of traveling… I think we go to bed around 3am after our late flight, long wait for a rental car and a drive to the hotel. We were starving. Here I am posing with Tiramisu french toast that I paired with a Nutella latte.

Susie enjoyed sampling Philadephia’s brews. Her favorite was Yards Pale Ale. We have cousins with Yards as their last name and so we sent this picture to them to show how much Susie was enjoying their beer. Obviously, she was really excited about it.

We had a lovely girls’ night out in Philly too. Pizza, dessert, drinks and dancing. A great bonding experience and breath of fresh air. I haven’t laughed so hard in ages!

Susie and I made sure to get some fun shades in Chinatown.

And of course I marveled at all the gorgeous architecture in such an old city.

And I found a touch of home! This water fountain caught my eye because it looked exactly like the ones all over Cincinnati parks and in Hyde Park Square. And I looked down to see the petal… Made in Cincinnati!

 

Greta spotted the Jonathan Adler store from across the street and we ran through the traffic to take this ridiculous picture. We are Jonathan Adler groupies!

 

We only had a few minutes to wander through the store but I just want to pick up the entire showroom and place it in my house. Spectacular design.

On another adventure we set out for a walk through town and found something completely unexpected. Rosa’s Fresh Pizza caught our attention because from the street we could see that the walls were plastered in post-it notes. Greta peeked in to see what the post-its were all about and came back with a cool story. These guys started this by-the-slice pizza place and noticed that many hungry, homeless people would buy their slices because it was a dollar and they could afford to eat that day. The owner mentioned that they feed many of Philadelphia’s homeless when he was interviewed in a newspaper article. Suddenly people started giving an extra dollar to “pay-it-forward” for pizza slices for the hungry. Each dollar donation is represented by a post-it note and the donor can write a message on each post-it that they “buy” for someone else. We each bought one and wrote messages. Neat idea! Read more about how Rosa’s Fresh Pizza feeds Philadelphia’s homeless here or like Rosa’s on Facebook.

 

Below is my note surrounded by many others… including thank you note from a homeless patron.

 

On our last outing we were directed by some local friends to eat at the Continental. The fries were highly recommended. Good thing there were 4 of us at lunch because the plate of fries was huge. 

…and we ate them all.

When it was time to head home we were tired…

 

Not only was I tired from travel, but when I returned home I was greeted by a sick kid. Hubby had it under control… but when I got home at 10pm, he was packed for his own 8am flight. Whirlwind! O’s all better now but that should explain why it took me almost a month to post about all the Philly fun.