My dad took me to the airport Friday and I was super pumped to get to LA- The flight to Seattle was BUMP·Y to say the least- but that is what happens when you are on a little puddle jumper, yes? But after a quick 45 minutes I was in Seattle.
I had very little time to get to my next plane. I got off the first one and had to go down a couple sets of escalators, take the little train thing, go back up a couple of sets of escalators and there was my flight, starting to board! Thank goodness I walked quickly!
The flight to SNA was so nice and relaxing. I had a girl next to me who basically (quietly) slept the entire trip and I put on my "impress" nails that I love so much and read a book on my Kindle, and I took lots of beautiful sky/cloud pictures because who can resist this view?
Then we landed and I took a quick but scary cab ride to my hotel where I was thankful to be on my own feet again because seriously, when you see a sea of red brake lights in front of you and you can feel the cab driver pressing down on the gas, it is a freak out moment!
I met up with my roomies Kara and Kristine for a short visit before we ran of to In-N-Out Burger because it was on my "must-do" list, as I had never been there. And when we got back to our room Nay was there and I finally got to HUG her!
Can I just say how delicious this was!?! It is actually a good thing that we don't have an In-N-Out burger near by because I would probably eat there too often and I certainly don't need that!
The next morning we got up and got ready for our busy day. But we first had to start with breakfast with more new friends. We met up at Sidecar for donuts and they were so good. I picked out two but I could have easily taste tested each and every one of them.
Because who can resist maple and bacon? And my second donut was huckleberry. YUM!
You guys-- I was so excited to meet Tausha. She is totally my blogger/girl crush and I love, love her and her blog. But I'm not going to lie- when I saw her, I panicked a little. I got soo nervous like I was in high school about to go on a date with a cute boy. I was in line ordering my donuts and I turned around, saw her in line and I waved and turned back around super fast. I was so nervous! Silly, right? Because she is probably one of the nicest people I've ever met.
Then we headed to the conference. I was past the nervous part and just totally excited!
I took this picture of my name that held my place to sit, and the professional photographer shared the picture on the right and I had to share because you guys, it's my mom. I know there are far more than one "Betty" out there, but when I saw this it just made me feel like my mom was there with me at Elevate. And that makes me smile.
I couldn't believe the amazing speakers that Summer and Jen rounded up. Then I was even luckier that I had Alison Prince from Pick Your Plum (second from the left) sitting on my left at lunch and Kailee Wright (third from the left with the beautiful baby bump) sitting on my right. Ya, I'm that lucky!
Alison is so sweet, and smart. She not only is the founder of Pick Your Plum and How Does She but she has several other businesses and is just wonderful to talk to. I could sit and pick her brain for hours and not be done. She talked about having the motto:
I.Will.Not.Be.Stopped
and to be completely honest, I feel like that is my goal. I felt like I was nodding my head along with everything that she was saying while thinking, "I want to get to that point, where I feel like I will not be stopped". But do you ever wonder how you get to that point? I do!
All day long we ate amazing food. StoneFire Grill, Café Rio, awesome snacks and desserts, cupcakes for the road, it was so good. I have never ate so much good food in one day, ever! And I have to admit, when the lady gave me a big heaping scoop of Quinoa salad I about laughed thinking I wasn't going to touch it. But guess what? It was my FAVORITE part. I thought about asking for more, but decided to contain myself. (But I really didn't want to!)
We did lots of fun activities like decorating a coffee cup, trying out CrioBru, painting playing cards, and making a card with Sizzix.
Dinner was provided by Café Rio and I have to say, it was amazing. I had never even heard of Café Rio, much less ate there. Everything looked so delicious and I wanted to pile my plate to the sky. I am always in such a routine with my tacos that I was totally up for trying something different with rice and beans, salsa, not to mention just a differently prepared meat. And a few days later was craving that food again. A couple of weeks after the conference I pulled into a parking spot at the grocery store and saw a Café Rio cup on the ground. So when I got home I looked up the locations and we have two! So needless to say, I'll be making a trip there one of these days!
My roomies, who I love. Kristine, Kara, myself and Renee- Go follow these ladies if you don't already. They are amazing.
Blogging Besties finally meet! If you don't follow Megan, you totally need to. She has a wealth of knowledge and she is typically my "go-to" when I have blog questions. I was so excited to meet her because we have been blog friends for a few years now. And she is just as wonderful as I thought she'd be. I was super excited to hang out with her.
After dinner we had one last speaker. Courtney, from Cents of Style. I'm not going to lie. She was hands down, my favorite. She spoke volumes to me and I was crying less than a minute into her talk (like every other woman in that place). Her stories, her family, what she has overcome to get her life to where it is now is just amazing. I look up to her and all that she stands for.
Our Elevate group. Those two gals right up front? Ya, That is Summer and Jen. They are the gals that put this little shindig together and what an amazing job they did. I am so grateful that I got to attend this wonderful conference and I took away so much more than I thought I would have. I walked away with a new way of looking at things, amazing new connections and friendships I will never forget. I walked out feeling empowered and wondering how I was going to make the next steps happen for my little blog.
After Elevate wrapped up we went back to the hotel to change and then headed to a chill "after party". Sitting around a fire pit with Mike's Hard Lemonade, cheese and crackers and good company is my kind of night.
The next morning I didn't really have a lot of time before I had to be headed off to the airport. I typically don't give myself a lot of time but since I was in LA and thought it was going to be busy I got there over 2 hours early. Guess how long it took me to get through security? Five minutes. Yep, and then I just sat there for over 2 hours. But I grabbed a coffee, a chicken sandwich and had my kindle in hand and I rarely have that much time to sit and read uninterrupted so I'll take it!
Photos courtesy of Pure Posh Photography.
Dang. I just left a mondo HUGE post and then it didn't post Thus my test post above. Lame.
ReplyDeleteSo, pretty much it went something like this:
1. You made me cry. Seriously the sweetest thing anyone has ever said about me.
2. That picture of the sky from the plane is THE BOMB.
3. I am soooo thankful you made such a huge effort to come. I am so thankful I finally got to meet you in person & that we got to spend so much time together. I hope that next year you will come too - and then we are totally rooming together. The end.