Blogger Meeting - The Beginning!

What a super fantastic weekend we just had. Everything came off without a hitch and the people attending could not have been nicer! If you can't get enough about this meeting from this blog over the next few days, you should head on over to my fellow bloggers. I know I sure will be doing that. I am dying to see what people have to say now that they are out of slapping range!

As I said on Friday night, I want to thank my late friend, Andee Carlsson of My Life in Chacala for the early on support and encouragement to go ahead and give this Blogger Meeting thing a try. I hope you were watching and enjoying it from Heaven, Andee. You were on my shoulder the entire time.

In no particular order, I want to thank these people for attending:

Lisa
Jonna and Mimi
Kelly
ChicagoTom and LuckySusie
Heather
Michelle and Rob
Liz
Kim
Laurie, Paul and Flat Stanley
Theresa and Husband

There were a few others attending, but they either do not blog or I have no link to them. So, on to the party, er, I mean Meeting!


I, or we, owe a big thank you to these three people. l to r: Alex, our waiter, Carlos, our bartender and Juan, owner of Fayne's






Juan could not have been more of a gentleman and his assistance and ideas and willingness to provide us with whatever we needed to have a good time was stupendous. I checked out the venue about 4:30 PM on Friday afternoon. I was dismayed to see that they had put the balloons in the wrong place and the tables were not set. I was thinking it would never come together. Juan explained how the tables were going to look when done. In fact, his wife, Paty, the owner of Adelita's Tequila Bar, was on her way over from Cancun as we spoke. She was bringing new "table blankets" and flowers for the table. I did not order these things. They just did it because they knew how important this event was to me. Good friends. So here is what the table looked like as people entered the room.







The food was all pre-ordered and, as promised, it was delivered on time and everybody got their meal at the same time. Those of you living in Mexico know that this is no easy task with a large group. We had two no shows and Juan did not charge me for those meals. In fact, he sat them on the table and told people to help themselves to extra shrimp! After dinner, he furnished everybody with a shot of tequila so I could make my dorky Welcome speech. I forgot most of it, but I think people got the message.



People started to arrive and the mingling and introductions started. I surprised myself by recognizing every single blogger as they ascended the staircase. Here we see Laurie and Paul enjoying some kind of joke with Rob.







I seem to have a penchant for photographing people from behind. Here we have Heather's back, Mimi and Theresa's back.







Here's a better picture of Theresa, Mimi and Theresa's husband, Husband. Although I did learn his real name, we'll just keep it a secret. They don't want to have to relocate again! (inside joke!)






I just barely got Lisa in focus here but what is up with Liz? She looks like she is going to slap me silly if I don't stop taking pictures. Actually, I think I just surprised her.







Photos were the order of business this weekend. Of course, being bloggers, we all had our cameras with us AT ALL TIMES! I never really knew when a picture was being taken of me. I just hope nobody posts a picture of me picking me nose or touching myself inappropriately or something. Not that I did. I'm just saying.



I caught Michelle just in time. Gonna take a picture of me? Well, here's yours in return!







Whatever Laurie is saying to Heather, it must have been interesting. Look how Heather is all leaning in, eager to catch every word. I will admit, Laurie did have some interesting stories.








Laurie and Paul's turn to listen.







The whole group just before dinner was served. Wait, Kim and her husband got cut off. Sorry Kim. Notice the dork on the right not paying attention to anybody and texting! How rude. If I had noticed it, he would have been told to put that thing away.








This has got to be, far and away, my favorite picture of the whole weekend. You have to enlarge this one to see the expressions on their faces. A few captions have entered my head, but I don't dare publish them! What do you think they are saying to each other?










Now here's trouble. I never suspected that such a pretty girl as Heather could be so devious and sneaky. I noticed her writing in her book but I thought she was taking copious notes for her blog entry about the meeting. Wrong! She had a special purpose in mind and was writing down very specific things. I can't wait to read that post from her! I think you all will get a huge chuckle when you read it too. And a feel for just how much fun we really had! (that's Kim aka Rivergirl beside her)







Speaking of pretty girls, Heather, Kim, Lisa and Liz fairly made the lights sparkle.








After dinner, Juan cleared out all the tables below us to make room for a very Special Guest Appearance by none other than.................FIREBOY! You've all seen the videos so I won't post any. As usual, he put on a tremendous show.








After dinner, those that had to, left. Those staying the night followed me over to Adelita's where the party continued to way too late! We had such a bevy of beauties at our table, they were attracting the locals like moths to a flame. Here Jonna is explaining to this dude that she just is not interested.







Actually, the guy on the right is Ivan, a good friend and owner of Aluxes Coffee Shop. Jonna is actually entertaining them with one of her stories. She has a special knack for telling a good story and a very infectious laugh.


Meanwhile, Mimi is busy consuming some shots of tequila. I'll leave it to Mimi to tell you how many she actually had here. I'll give you a hint. I don't think I have ever consumed that much tequila totally in my life!





I don't know who took this picture using my camera and I have no memory of posing for it. Nor why I am holding up a 50 peso note. Maybe to show how much money I had left after paying my tab! If anybody remembers, let me know. (unless it is going to embarrass me!)




So the first night of the Blogger Meeting ended with hugs and lots of good feelings. I could not have hoped for more!