Blog Friends Fest

Jam-Packed with Fun

I was a little hesitant about going to the Blog Friends Fest.  Not only am I incredibly shy in large groups, but I didn't know how everything would work out bringing the baby along.  A weekend of drunken debauchery with a baby on the hip is sooo Britney.

Over eight months and he still won't take a bottle come hell or high water.  Sigh.  It's just as well - I'm not sure that I could leave him for a whole weekend right now.  Luckily for me, I was able to call in the reserves.

We dropped our three-year-old off with my parents, and he had a fabulous weekend taking a trolley ride, splashing around in the water, and eating Mississippi Mud Pie.

The Husband came along to Niagara to mind the baby, so that I could go out with the girls.  Thanks to him, I went to the cocktail party sponsored by Random House on Friday.  We got copies of The Gargoyle and temporary tattoos.  (I'd post a picture, but I'm sure it's all over the 'Net by now - just search "hot(e) girl with dragon tattoo").  The Husband also stayed in the hotel Saturday, so I could go for fun dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Both Hubbie and baby came along on our wine tour to Jackson-Triggs.  The baby learned a lot about wine, but don't worry, we only let him taste the 2004 Riesling, so he didn't get too sloshed.

The good people at Ford sponsored our trip and let us borrow their new Flex.  Considering the ridiculous amount of stuff we had to pack for two days, it's a good thing they did.  The Flex was able to fit it all, along with two carseats and STILL have room to spare.  Our older son zombied out to Toy Story in the back and we got have some Sirius fun playing with the satellite radio.  Not to mention, the fridge kept the baby's food and breastmilk lovely and cool.  That is a real plus in my books - I'm constantly worried about the integrity of the cooling system I use while travelling. 

Although the car is a little too big for us right now - we're a family of four who uses the car sparingly - the Husband was so impressed by it's smooth, quiet ride, that he will seriously consider Ford for our next upgrade.  But for a family of five, or a small family who likes road trips and camping, I'd say you can't get much better.  It's airy, light, comfortable and has a lot of room to pack everything you might need.  And this is coming from an over-packer.

But the icing on the already fabulous cake?  The wonderful, amazing and beautiful blogger women (and men!  Well, man, to be exact.).  Some I knew from other bloggy events, and some were complete unknowns to me.  Everyone - bar none - was friendly.  I put out the call to have people help me carry my (not so little) baby, and there was no end to people wanting to entertain him.  He was with us during the conference portion and was so bedazzled by the bloggers that I rarely heard a peep out of him.  And I got to take notes!  And get myself a coffee!  I even managed to go to the bathroom all by myself once!  Good times.  But more importantly, eventhough I'm only a smalltime blogger, and couldn't stay out too late (the baby rises with the crack of not-yet dawn no matter what time I get in), I always felt included and welcome.  And that, just maybe, people were a little glad to see me.

Now I need a weekend to recover from my weekend, thankyouverymuch.

Cross-posted at Better Than a Playdate

I was a little hesitant about going to the Blog Friends Fest.  Not only am I incredibly shy in large groups, but I didn't know how everything would work out bringing the baby along.  A weekend of drunken debauchery with a baby on the hip is sooo Britney.

Over eight months and he still won't take a bottle come hell or high water.  Sigh.  It's just as well - I'm not sure that I could leave him for a whole weekend right now.  Luckily for me, I was able to call in the reserves.

We dropped our three-year-old off with my parents, and he had a fabulous weekend taking a trolley ride, splashing around in the water, and eating Mississippi Mud Pie.

The Husband came along to Niagara to mind the baby, so that I could go out with the girls.  Thanks to him, I went to the cocktail party sponsored by Random House on Friday.  We got copies of The Gargoyle and temporary tattoos.  (I'd post a picture, but I'm sure it's all over the 'Net by now - just search "hot(e) girl with dragon tattoo").  The Husband also stayed in the hotel Saturday, so I could go for fun dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Both Hubbie and baby came along on our wine tour to Jackson-Triggs.  The baby learned a lot about wine, but don't worry, we only let him taste the 2004 Riesling, so he didn't get too sloshed.

The good people at Ford sponsored our trip and let us borrow their new Flex.  Considering the ridiculous amount of stuff we had to pack for two days, it's a good thing they did.  The Flex was able to fit it all, along with two carseats and STILL have room to spare.  Our older son zombied out to Toy Story in the back and we got have some Sirius fun playing with the satellite radio.  Not to mention, the fridge kept the baby's food and breastmilk lovely and cool.  That is a real plus in my books - I'm constantly worried about the integrity of the cooling system I use while travelling. 

Although the car is a little too big for us right now - we're a family of four who uses the car sparingly - the Husband was so impressed by it's smooth, quiet ride, that he will seriously consider Ford for our next upgrade.  But for a family of five, or a small family who likes road trips and camping, I'd say you can't get much better.  It's airy, light, comfortable and has a lot of room to pack everything you might need.  And this is coming from an over-packer.

But the icing on the already fabulous cake?  The wonderful, amazing and beautiful blogger women (and men!  Well, man, to be exact.).  Some I knew from other bloggy events, and some were complete unknowns to me.  Everyone - bar none - was friendly.  I put out the call to have people help me carry my (not so little) baby, and there was no end to people wanting to entertain him.  He was with us during the conference portion and was so bedazzled by the bloggers that I rarely heard a peep out of him.  And I got to take notes!  And get myself a coffee!  I even managed to go to the bathroom all by myself once!  Good times.  But more importantly, eventhough I'm only a smalltime blogger, and couldn't stay out too late (the baby rises with the crack of not-yet dawn no matter what time I get in), I always felt included and welcome.  And that, just maybe, people were a little glad to see me.

Now I need a weekend to recover from my weekend, thankyouverymuch.

Cross-posted at Better Than a Playdate

BFF: A small re-cap

Friday night's Random House cocktail party was a great time - it doesn't get much better than free food and drinks, copies of a great book and temporary tattoos!

Our roundtable discussion on Saturday was all about – wait for it…blogging. Being able to get together like that – armed with ridiculously expensive hotel munchies and our laptops – and have open dialogue was really cool. Initially, we touched on why we’d started blogging and being a part of this, the blogsphere, which lead us to other topics – privacy, dry spells, the pressures of blogging, what we do and don’t write about, commenting and comments – and we spent a good hour going around the table sharing a blog that, for whatever reason, really spoke to us. Good stuff. (For a list of as many of the blogs mentioned as I can remember, check out the end of this post.)

(An aside: if you’re ever in Niagara Falls and are looking for a hotel that can offer reliable Internet, think twice before coughing up to stay at the Hilton. Despite the fact that they’d known for months that we’d be there for a BLOGGING event, the Internet connection during our discussion was spotty at best and there was nobody on hand (besides Sci-Fi Dad, who was able to get several of us online for a spell by simply standing by our laptops) who was in the know that could help us. To say the least, it was frustrating, not to mention quite disappointing.)

We split up for lunch before meeting up again for either a wine tour or a cross-border shopping run. A few of us arrived at the Jackson-Triggs wine tour in style - a HUGE thanks to Ford for the Flex! Our tour guide, a somewhat scrawny-looking guy named Marcus who had a faux-hawk and appeared to be not a day over 21, turned out to be really good – he was super informative and the tour itself was really interesting. Most importantly, the wine was good (and there was lots of it!).

When we got back we had just enough time to change before hitting up the Hard Rock for dinner. It was really, really loud in there, but the food was good and so was our waitress. We had a Hote(l) Party at the hotel afterward that involved zombies and mannequins and zombie mannequins and twats and twits and side-splitting laughter and CLEARLY, several bottles of wine.

We made our way out slowly on Sunday; most of us opted out of the Maid of the Mist in favour of swimming at the hotel (there was a curly slide!) and grabbing food before leaving.

Thanks to everyone who helped organize this weekend, to our sponsors and to everyone who came and was a part of it. It was a blast, and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Blogs that were mentioned during our roundtable discussion:

Pickled Beef
Woman in a Window
Julia {Here Be Hippogriffs}
Simply Shenuts
Hoping For Grace
The Not-so Secret Life of Katie Valentine
Circle of Life
Cheaper Than Therapy
Six Until Me
Kevin Charnas
Sweet/salty
So Close
Uppercase Woman     
Life on the Roof
Slightly Less Cynical
My Tragic Right Hip
Life: The Ongoing Education
It's Not All Mary Poppins
Nonlinear Girl

BFFing Good Time

Together we gathered, new friends and old, and for 2 1/2 days we had fun. F-U-N.

We laughed, we talked, we blogged, we drank, we cuddled babies, we had a zombie photo shoot and we even created new words (we so hote). In short, BFF took Niagara by storm.

Later this week we'll post links to all the juicy recaps and reflections on our bloggy weekend of debauchery. As we wait for all those awesometastic posts to go up, we leave you with a pictorial run down of our hoe down ....

Random House sponsored a groovy cocktail party themed around a new book, The Gargoyle, complete with tattoos. We are all over this book.

The party continued on until the wee hours of the morning in the hotel room.

We took over a massive board room and held a round table discussion where we talked about blogosphere friendships and community. We each shared a favourite blogger who wasn't at BFF and talked about our children's rights, our partner's rights and our own perspective on blogging.

And we cuddled babies. Really cute babies.

Then some of us took a fantastic wine tour at Jackson Triggs. Mmmmm wine.

While cross board shopping fun ensued, some BFFers rode to the winery with NoMotherEarth (plus her charming hubby and cuter than cute baby) in the coolest looking Ford Flex. Ford sponsored "Better Than A Playdate" to send her to BFF in style.

Then we rocked it at the Hard Rock Cafe.

And, of course, back to the hotel for yet another room party.

Here's to BFF '09!

Missing all our hote BFF friends already.
xo

(photo credit: Metro Mama, Ms. Blue and Mama T)

Wish you were here!

This was before zombies attacked us...

Don't you wish you hot like us?