Blog Party 2008

.

Before I left for Utah I mentioned to a few people that I was heading to Women's Conference. If Ken was with me when the subject came up he'd say, "Tell them where else you're going in Utah . . . " So I just stopped telling people I was going away at all. How do you explain about a blogging *reunion* with people you've never *met*?

Kelly and I had the bright idea of staying at the Hampton Inn where the blogging party was held, which turned out to be a good idea since we lingered at the party till 1am! (I was so glad just to be taking the elevator upstairs when we finally tore ourselves away)

.

.

Kelly and I spent most of Saturday shopping. We thought we'd head to the hotel around 5pm to repack our new purchases into our suitcases and freshen up for the party. We didn't get to the hotel until 5:30 or so, only to be told by the person at the front desk that the blogging party room was booked for 5pm! We panicked at the idea of meeting up with any bloggers in our state of dishevelment, and we unloaded our bags and carried them up to our room as quickly and discreetly as possible (other than the spy moves and laughter we couldn't suppress). We were relieved to hear from Lisa who checked her evite and informed us that the party didn't start till 7pm. I don't know why I didn't print out my evite and bring it with me to refer to for details?

.

When we went downstairs we were immediately greeted with hugs and welcomes from Jill, Michelle, and Kristi. No detail was neglected for the party with cute blogging centerpieces on the tables and more food than we could consume! I brought 2 flavors of my hand dipped chocolates served in my signature pizza box. My kids could not believe their luck when I dipped chocolates 2 weeks ago and saved some for them. Christmas chocolates in April? Well, the weather was cooperating with my Christmas spirit that week.

We had time to visit, as well as door prizes for everyone (with the obligation of an acceptance speech/introduction - which I really appreciated because I knew so few of the bloggers there)!

.

I realized right before we headed down to the blogging party that I had left the memory card for my camera at home inside the laptop computer, and the port on my camera is corrupted, so all photos that I took at women's conference are trapped on the hard drive of my Nikon. I'm sad about that, but it was very nice just to enjoy the party without trying to document it. Thanks to better photographers than I, there are plenty of blog party photos on Jill's smugmug gallery for me to save and store myself. Thanks for sharing your camera talents, ladies!

I am only slightly surprised that the bloggers are in real life all they seem to be on their blogs (except Annalisa who talks with her hands which SPT has failed to reveal). I enjoyed the personal connection with previous blogging friends at the party - so nice to put my arms around you - and I feel like I've made more blogging friends as well. I even learned a thing or two about blogging from the Q&A period, and I am considering some format changes based on what I learned.

Thanks for the hospitality and only making fun of my Canadian accent once, eh!