BlogHer 2009

Where do I even start? I went into this weekend not knowing what to think, but never imagined it would be this huge and intense. I had an absolute blast and would totally do it again!

Now, lets get a rundown of the 3 days. Traffic was a nightmare from the airport to the hotel, so I was late getting in Thursday and my roomies Mommy Musings and Deb Mom of 3 were left waiting. I’m sooo sorry. They understood though. It was all good. I did miss a couple invited parties due to this, but again it was ok!

Thursday, when I met my roomies, I was so excited. I could not have picked better roomies. We all had a blast. Sorry about falling asleep each night LOL, but my eyes just would not stay open for some reason ;). This was the first time ever I met Deb and she was just so much fun. We really connected and had fun doing several things together throughout the weekend. She is just as sweet as I imagined!!!

Thursday night, we did attend the People’s Party. What a madhouse that was… but we did get to meet some great ladies and network with some PR companies. We also got to check out the new line of Crocs. My girls will be so excited. I have uploaded the new line to my Flickr account in which I will post at the bottom of this post. Then we headed to the Room 704 party, which was just craziness. I have never seen so many disrespectful people all over a bag a swag. Just silly. Anyways we escaped that madhouse with Stef (MommyMusings), Shannon (Cajun_Mama) and Leigh (Themeparkmom) and walked across town to get a midnight dinner. Thank you Shannon so much!! It was great and I just loved hanging out with the ladies. We laughed so much!

Friday we woke up to Breakfast, then it was time to hit the Expo Floor. The Expo Floor hit me by surprise. I didn’t know it would be that HUGE, but it was great to see all the companies and network/connect with them on a mom/consumer level. We had some great conversations especially with McDonalds about using Twitter and getting into the social media scene more with moms.

Ragu sponsored the lunch for us Friday and I have to say, In my opinion it was marketing gone right! The lunch was super fab, the food was great, and just the way they handled the whole thing was awesome. I took pictures as well!

After lunch we met up with Maria Bailey in her MomTV Suite. This amazing lady really has it going on. She looks out for us moms so much and connects with us on so many different levels. She had her Suite opened up to us all and was interviewing all that wanted for MomTV. We had the chance to meet several moms in there as well. I finally met Audrey and Adrianne there as well. Very genuine ladies!

We headed back to the room at this time to get all dolled up for the evening. We then went out to the Lobby and headed over to the Suave party. They had some amazing Cucumber Mojitos and it was fun just sitting back with some amazing ladies. Here I got to meet Marianne from Riding With No Hands. Such a great person as well! Then we headed back for the TypeAMomFluence Party. Fun times again connecting with more bloggers. I got to meet the person I really wanted to and she sat at the table with us Kingdom First Mom. She has to be the most caring, sweetest, funniest person. I really enjoyed talking with her. Also, I finally got to meet Amy from Crunchy Domestic Goddess. She was such a beauty and very down to earth. Really enjoyed her. I did start crying in front of her about missing my girls and she gave me a hug. Thank you Amy!!

Now onto Saturday… we started with Breakfast again of course. We got to meet the super fab Katja Presnal… she was really a lot of fun, and so genuine. It was actually her first BlogHer as well so she understood how we were feeling. Such a great lady!!

Stef and I were back down on the Expo Floor and ended up with about a hour conversation with WalMart with just us. It was such a great, thorough conversation about our thoughts, concerns and tips. They ended up bringing out the video camera and putting us on camera which I thought was really cool. It really showed they cared what we were saying. I look forward to what they will be unveiling soon! Then it was time for Paula Deen. I will be uploading some video of her. She had to be the funniest session all weekend. I LOVED her and you will too after I post the video.

Then Stef and I skipped out onto the town. We went over to Navy Pier and just had a great time doing the tourist things. She bought me my first Chicago Hotdog and it was soooo fabulous!!! LOVED IT. It’s definitely not your ordinary hotdog.  Stef and I had such a great connection the entire time we were there. I’m so glad she got to come and enjoyed my time with her sooo much.

That evening we headed back to get ready for BowlHer. It was the best party of them all. We went to a lot of parties and this took the award. We got to walk the red carpet, hear some great singers, bowl if you wanted and just had fun connecting with everyone. Even my Weight Watchers PR Gal spotted me out of everyone and came up and introduced herself. It was so awesome meeting her!! Thank you for coming up to me Nicole :). Brooke White from American Idol really put on such an upbeat and fun show. It was here I met Resourceful Mom as well. She is so nice. I met a lot of bloggers here I wanted to as was and got to say hi :).

After BowlHer we left for the CheesburgHer Party. This was too funny. Even a bachelor party had hopped into our party crowd. You were definitely shoulder to shoulder in there, but it was quite funny with us all in their hats. Look at the pictures ;). Mcdonalds definitely did this party right with all the cheeseburgers and hamburgers you wanted. Great times!

I know I am leaving so much out and leaving out several wonderful bloggers out too. Just know I had fun meeting you all. It was a blast. I will say this… It did hit home this weekend of some bloggers I follow that were not genuine at all. Which I don’t understand because we are all bloggers. I don’t think there should be a pedestal for any of us, but it is what it is. I really enjoyed connecting with all the genuine ones :).

I didn’t take a lot of pictures as I would forget my camera a lot… but take a look at the ones I did 🙂

Take a look!

I do want to give a huge shout out to my sponsors for making this happen for me. Primrose Schools who I got a chance to tour… I really love how they are making education fun and such a great learning experience. Also Tropical Traditions who is helping us live a healthier life! I just love their coconut oil and use it for so many things. You have to try it 🙂