Gardennut , my sister Jeri and I

Gardennut, my sister,Jeri and I arrived in Raleigh on Friday. We live in Indiana about 25 miles from Merrillville. The Marriot lobby was crowed with Claymates. You could tell they were Claymates by all the hugging and laughing going on. We ate dinner at hotel that night, the Meca closed at 7 pm so our plans for eating there went down the drain. The next morning we attended the workshop for inclusion headed by Aron Hall and Jerry Aiken. It was a great program and people had many good ideas on how to raise money and make more people aware of the idea of inclusion.

We ate lunch at Coopers and had BBQ. I loved the hush puppies and coleslaw mmmmm, NC BBQ is a little more vinegary than I’m used to but still very good The best part was the had a picture of Clay with his arm around a couple of the servers.

The afternoon was spent doing nails, hair and viewing the silent auction items down by the ballroom. There were some really beautiful items. I didn’t bid on anything, but Vie did and won a CD and DVD set someone had made of Clay’s tours.

The dinner was excellent. I think Clay remembered the Claymates love cheesecake. : ) The ballroom was full as far as could see, except there were 3 empty seats at our table. We sat in the back row and it was very hard to see . The faces were dime size from my seat. I tried to take pictures but the lighting was bad and not flattering to the subjects. I could have zoomed and gotten a picture but you need a tripod to keep the camera steady with that much zoom. So no pictures, but I had to see the show , so I ran (shoes off)as fast as I could back to my room and got my binoculars.

I was very impressed with Patrick Henry Hughes, his voice is really good and his story is amazing. Does anybody know if he has a CD out or is making one.

The auction was hilarious. Clay is a natural born comedian. He just stood there at times making funny faces and acting silly just so people would bid more. There are videos of everything on CU. It is very worth viewing.

Watching and listening to Clay Aiken sing live is beyond awesome. The songs he sang were just right. I particularly liked I Adore You. The tone ,feeling and the heart he puts into a song is addictive. I can’t get enough of his singing. I have a problem finding words to describing Clay.

We left the next day for home. We stopped in Greensboro ( missed seeing Carolinaclay due to her illness : ( ) and Ashville and shopped some mostly the window variety. The ride home was beautiful the leaves are changing color in Ohio and Indiana. And of course we listened Clay’s CDs all the way home.

Margaret