i had heard all of the buzz about blogher and knowing that it was in san diego i was a little bummed that i wasn’t going. i looked into it but with my mom (grandma is our babysitter) being out of town and my husband working…i thought there was no way i could go and forgot about it. then three days before the conference, i get a text from my husband asking me why i wasn’t going? WHAT? and so i bought my ticket. the conference was thurs-sat but i went for one day only. and then i panicked!!! OMG…what did i just do…i am going to have an anxiety attack…maybe i shouldn’t go…i just paid $150 for a one day pass…i have to go…omg, why didn’t i just buy business cards months ago when i wanted to??? i quickly got on twitter and started tweeting away looking for a friend to meet up with. normally i would drag my mom or a friend but no one was going to pay this much for a ticket and no one i know in real life blogs! thank goodness trina introduced me to summer. she was going to be at the conference all three days and agreed to meet me first thing friday morning at check-in. and i had found my blogher bff.

summer and i hit it off immediately. she is definitely my kind of girl. so much so that our outfits actually looked like we coordinated them. that was another thing…i stressed over what to wear to the conference. i wanted to look cute but i wanted to be comfortable too. i decided on a white tank and one of my favorite midi skirts with wedges. these are really comfortable wedges and i still had about five blisters at the end of the night. my only real regret is that i wore spanx under my skirt…mostly because it was slightly sheer  and my shirt was bulky if i didn’t tuck it into them. every time i went to the bathroom i ended up in the mirror trying to tuck everything back into them…and apologizing to everyone that walked in and saw me.

the expo…wow. i had no idea what to expect. people were not kidding when they said you will need a suitcase just for the swag. i had two bags full, plus my laptop and camera on me at all times.  summer had seen it all the night before and took me to the dr scholls booth immediately. we also took pics with the kudos guys above, elmo from the playskool booth and justin bieber at the pop salad booth. cvs was giving away full size beauty products too. it was pretty awesome.

here i am at the samsung re-charge your battery station where we charged our phones and rested our feet which of course led to a photo session! and then summer got a migraine headache..the poor thing had to go take a nap in her car so i quickly got on my phone and tracked down miss crazypants. to be honest, i don’t even remember how i met her prior to blogher. i think i followed her on twitter after seeing her tweets with summer. i think. and i am SO glad i did. she met me at the hotel for drinks by the pool. a complete stranger. and i loved her immediately. i know this sounds like a squee-fest (a term i learned recently that i don’t care for but use anyway) but she was that awesome. we hit it off immediately and i felt like we had been friends forever.

summer, tonia and me at the cheap sally party. this was a super fun party with great food, great people and of course, more swag. summer introduced me to tonia of the chatty momma who was in charge of all of the blogher volunteers. omg…she is hilarious and knew EVERYONE…and was just so fun to be around!

and then i met kathy (aka mama kat) of mama’s losin it and jill of scary mommy! i am sure they thought i was a lunatic quoting their blog posts and telling them how much i loved their blogs. but you know what…i couldn’t help myself. these women are two of the funniest bloggers ever. i adored them before and love them even more now. and how gorgeous are they? we also hit up the lulus party and met up with some super sweet bloggers there (here and here).

we ended the night at sparklecorn where i have never seen more women dancing and having a blast together in one spot. there were women up on stage doing choreographed dances which i now know were part of a flash mob that i missed earlier. so sad i missed it…i would love to have been a part of that!

and then…i met maegan. one of the reasons i was so excited to go was that i might get to meet her. love maegan is one of the first fashion blogs i came across when i started mine. and i loved her immediately. she is such a real, down to earth girl and just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the out. and this people…is why i had the best time ever at blogher. i didn’t get to go to as many of the sessions as i had hoped and i would have loved to have been able to attend all three days but it was the longest i had been away all by myself without my husband and son in a LONG time. i am so thankful that my husband took the day off of work to watch eep just so i could go and meet so many amazing women that i now get to call friends in real life.