My #BlogHerFood In Pictures

Although I have attended BlogHer’s annual conference for the past four years, this was my first BlogHer Food conference, and my first conference as a member of the BlogHer team. The Super Special Bonus of my weekend was that I got to work and play almost every minute right alongside one of my BFFs. I had a great time and the experience only made me more excited about next month’s annual conference in my hometown.

I have gathered some pictures together to try and give you the essence of my weekend. Here goes:

Momo and I attended an event with The Pioneer Woman and, while sitting on a couch across the room from her I spotted what I thought would be a good photo of the bar. I took the picture and Momo said that the shot was a little stalkish.

I disagreed and proceeded to show her what a stalkish photo would look like:

This slogan is used to promote small businesses in Austin and it totally fits. Austin IS weird, in a good way.

Austin is gorgeous at sunrise:

Momo and I were working in the BlogHer on-site office, and I have been telling her for months that I was going to bring decorations to each conference so I could put some personality into our workspace. She was all, “Don’t you dare!” I laughed because she thought I was ridiculous about wanting to decorate, but in the end I just decorated virtually, via PicMonkey. I present to you the Before and After, and yes that is a William and Kate poster on the left and a NKOTB poster on the right.

Momo (who is BlogHer’s Social Media Manager) and I (BlogHer Social Media Researcher) spoke on a panel with Denise (who is BlogHer Community Manager). I enjoyed telling people what our panel was about because I always followed with a laugh, saying, “By far the geekiest thing I’ve ever done.” And it was.

*I* think the panel went pretty well, and if it didn’t I don’t think I really want to know. What I learned from being up there is that if you put two good friends on stage in front of a room full of people (okay, maybe fifty), one of them still might take the time to pass a note, even if they’re both in their forties.

At lunchtime on Saturday my cousin Brian and his family picked me up for a whirlwind tour of Austin (accidental because we were looking for food trucks and actually ended up where everyone from the conference ate lunch) and then a quick stop at the capitol building. I’m so glad I got to see them for a couple of hours: I had so much fun!

I was thrilled that we had time to make a stop at the beautiful Capitol building for a quick walk-through and some pictures. It’s gorgeous.

All of the door hinges are custom:

Saturday evening was the BlogHer Food closing party at Stubb’s, Austin’s famous BBQ place and (since we’d never been to Austin before) most well-known in my family because of the 2005 album by the Jewish reggae/alternative musician Matisyahu.

The party was tremendously fun. The BBQ was perhaps the best I’ve ever eaten in my life. Also, this picture is fantastic, isn’t it? It tasted even better than this picture looks, if you can imagine.

I had a great time hanging out at the downstairs bar with Momo and other friends. The live band was very good and they even performed the “Cupid Shuffle”. Upon hearing it Momo and I literally ran out to the dance floor, jumped into the front row, and shuffled our hearts out, ahem, not spilling a drop of our drinks. #Professionals

When the song was over we made a beeline back to the bar, rejoining our friends.

We socialized so well down there that when we went back out to the main area, nearly everybody had left. Hundreds of people: gone. Poof!

The party had completely wound down outside but we had no idea. We slowly moved to the front gate and stopped there to chat and laugh for a while until this happened (Vine courtesy of Momo):

It. Was. Hilarious.

We marked the occasion with one last selfie for the evening…

(Mr. Lady, Busy Dad, Me, Momo)And then we laughed all the way back to the hotel.

BlogHer Food was a whirlwind of a weekend: I worked, I played, I ate (boy, did I eat!) and I got to meet some awesome new friends. Some of them are people with whom I’ve been connected online for a while and some were brand new to me in every way.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to slip into some combination of a food/sleepy coma.