Oh, What A Night!

Yup. Last night was THE night. I got to meet a bunch of fellow mommy bloggers! Hooray! I had a fabulous time and haven't shut up about it since. It's true! Ask Greg! Could I use any more exclamation points!!!

You can read this on about 13 other sites that are guaranteed to be more fascinating than this story, but here is how the evening went for me:

I was so nervous! I stressed about what to wear. I even went shopping and bought a new shirt for the occasion. (which, when I put it on right before I left made me feel extremely MOMish and mature. Eek! I dealt with my issues by taking deep breaths and telling myself that I AM a mom, so it was okay that I looked mature. Plus, really, it goes with my Mom Haircut.)

Alicia and Taffi went with me. We rode together so that we wouldn't have to go in alone, and most of the other bloggers came together in another group. I realized that we are not far removed from the whole junior-high-going-to-the-bathroom-when-your-friend-does thing. Safety in numbers, baby! You never know when someone is going to flip your bra strap or depants you.

The evening started off well. Nervous laughter, polite chatter, etc. We had nametags. We introduced ourselves. Queen Beth spilled stuff, so did I. We ate a lot of yummy italian food. Karen got stuff in her teeth. Alicia and Heather played the "Don't I Know You From Somewhere?" game all night long. I'm not sure if they ever figured it out. We took a lot of pictures at the restaurant that I won't bother posting since there will be 4,000 duplicates. You'll have to check out everyone else's pages for the play-by-play.

In order for everyone to get a chance to chat we switched seats every 10 minutes or so. That made for some crafty manuevering since we had to carry our food and drinks with us. I held onto my plate tightly since I didn't want to be known as, Emlouisa, the girl that dumps food on her unsuspecting victims.

As the evening wore on we got a little more silly. The nervous laughter turned into cackles and fits of giggles. Maybe it was the food. We ate a lot of food. Then waitress tried to overcharge us. Karen challenged her to a duel. Karen won. Go Karen!

We finished eating and exited the restaurant but no one wanted the night to end! We were having so much fun! (Plus it was only 9pm. The night was young!) So Mary dazzled us with her fashion sense while we tried to figure out where to take our adventure. Mary is a babe!

We wanted to preserve the memories of the evening with something tangible so we loaded up into minivans and headed to the local Wally World. Par-TAY!!!

A teenaged boy in the parking lot tried to give us this. We said no thanks. He was insistent until I snapped this picture and told him that he was "SO going to be on the internet". He seemed confused, maybe a little freaked out and left us alone. Poor kid.


We checked out the jewelry section and picked out BFF (Best Friends Forever, silly!) necklaces. Check out how deep in thought we were about these things. Seriously, we spent MINUTES trying to find just the perfect memento of our time together.

We finished up and I remembered that I had to buy an onion. The girls patiently waited while I found the perfect one. Especially Kathryn. It must be one of her Daring Good Traits.

Me and my onion. Sunday dinner is going to be awesome!

So that was our night. We had a blast. My little necklace is now hanging around my webcam, there to remind me of a fabulous evening with some fabulous ladies.

It was great to meet each and every one of them. They are fantastic bloggers, and even more fantastic in person. Not a dud among them. So thanks for letting us crash your party, girls. I'll be adding you all to my blogroll very very soon.

Top Left: Karlie, Mom on a Wire; Heather, One Woman's World; Beth, Her Majesty's Throne; April, Your Stitchery Friend; Taffi, One More Thing To Do; Emily (me) Alicia Growing Spuds

Bottom Left: Kathryn Daring Young Mom; Karen The Big Trade-off; Mary Owl Haven Erin (Kathryn's non blogger friend); Stephanie, Princess Mom; Stephanie's non blogger friend (I don't remember her name! Sorry!); Brooke, ABC Momma.

Aren't we HOT??