The Nationals!!

We are back from a week in St. Louis MO to attend the ACA Nationals. What a fun week even if we froze, got rained out, had to stand in floods and lost out on a lot of shoppers due to the weather! It was still a great week!!

First, huge thanks to Ms. Nancy, her wonderful friend Ms. Jackie who doesn't even have Akitas but comes to Nationals to help us out, to my wonderful daughter Jenn who knocked herself out, to Deb & Chris Karfs for driving out & helping us all week. They did all the work - decorated the booth, redecorated every day after when the rain and wind caused issues. They schlepped the stuff from the hotel back & forth (and up and down stairs as our hotel had NO ELEVATOR!)and they packed the van up at the end as well as helped load up the ARSF booth to help Kathy Stoudt!! The gals were troopers -- laughing the whole week, making jokes and being upbeat despite the weather and other issues we ran into. I love these people -- they are the reason I love doing the Nationals every year!

Add to that, we get to see a lot of great friends -- people we only see at the Nationals because of distance. We got to have dinners with good friends, spend the evenings at either meetings or with other good friends and nothing is better than getting to be with friends!!

This year's Parade of Titleholders (that includes the Rescue dogs) was fabulous!! They brought back the music and as a surprise, had the agility dogs show off their skills -- what a fun thing to watch!! I didn't get to see much of the show due to my health and other times being at the booth but this I did get to watch -- hats off to the ACA for making this so much fun to watch! And hats off to the new ACA President Mike Bennett (those who attended the AKITA PICNIC got to meet him!) for speaking up and making a very impassioned speech about rescue -- you rock Mikey!

All in all, while the 15 hr drive out each way was a bummer, it was great to be able to be there this year -- we missed last year's National and I hate to miss any National!! Its a good way to keep Rescue in everyone's mind, a good way to connect to those that donate to us all year long and a great way to meet up with friends!!

Next year's National will be in Gettysburg PA -- I will be writing a lot about that in upcoming months, as we want to have a LOT of ARWNY rescue dogs marching in that Parade of Titleholders so be prepared -- the date for the parade should be Sept 24, 2010 but I will check to be sure.

Here is the info for the 2010 National:

September 21-25 2010

Eisenhower Hotel
2634 Emmitsburg Road
Gettysburg, PA 17325

1-800-776-8349 Or 1-717-334-8121

Contact : Mary Lou or Amber 8:30 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. EST

More on the 2010 National later!!!