P2P

#HBC New York Rundown

I promise…last post on NY.  If you want our trip in old-style journaling every second of what we did, check out Heather’s post.  I particularly liked this paragraph:

The shoot was AMAZING. Everything you could imagine a dream photo shoot in NYC could be, this was. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of my sister, other than at the births of my neices. She rocked. In her gentle way that she does everything she picked out an outfit (the one I told her over and over to use) and then sat and got her makeup done. It looked flawless. Then the posing. I’ve seen some of her “home” posing pictures…I’m not sure where this came from but she nailed it. I’ve seen my BFF from school go from normal girl to model girl and it’s like a light switch gets turn on…I had never seen this with my sister and I felt like a deer caught in headlights. My sissy was HOT. and she knew it. When she had done the shoot for a magazine awhile ago this confidence wasn’t there….here, she was a superstar. I failed to get pictures that really showed off what was going on at the right angles but trust me, the pics were awesome. So with the pop of a ballon it was over and we were “free” to go but I think Amy and me didn’t want it to end.

Grey’s Anatomy and The Office Review

The Office

• I kept finding myself saying I love Jim and Dwight!  They are hilarious together.  That stopwatch was hilarious.  And that look Dwight gave after his 19 minute break?  Hilarious.
• Michael blocking the copier?  Hilarious.
• Corporate okaying the discounted paper?  Hilarious.
• Michael taking the coffee pot from the kitchen?  Hilarious.
• Michael telling her at dinner that he doesn’t want his “family” to think their jobs are based on performance? Hilarious.

Great episode but where was our Pam?

Grey’s

Whew, I felt like Grey’s hit their stride and thank goodness it only took two weeks instead of like 13 episodes like last season.  There were really only two scenes though that I must point out.

• Meredith and Derek deciding at the end to let Izzie and Alex stay.  Her asking Derek if he still loved her.  And he does.  And they hugged.  I don’t know what better name to call him than his given McDreamy.
• Alex’s “Hello.”  That is Shonda Rhimes’ at her best writing (placement not really the creativity or lack thereof of “hello” LOL) and Justin Chambers’ at his best acting.  Loved. it.

#HBC The leftovers

OK, these are a few points I had written on my list that don’t really make up a whole post but as a listmaker, I feel as if I must post on them.

• What is with all the making out?  We saw more than a few couples straight up french kissing on the sidewalk.  One guy had his hand down his girl’s pants in the back.  Couldn’t wait to get to the room?  What?  Is this normal?
• The talent we saw in the subway…are these scheduled?  Are there rules about who gets to perform and for how long?
• I couldn’t help but notice how many people there were walking around and one might think New York would be chaotic but chaotic is the very last thing it is.  The people and cars move in this fluid movement with their own set of rules that I think actually would be beautiful to watch from the air.
• Why can’t you touch money?  People about jumped out of their skin when Heather tried to help a guy beside her at the newspaper stand and handed the lady his money he had laid down that she couldn’t quite reach. She said you did the right thing but we’re taught not to touch other people’s money unless we’re asked.  Really?  I’ve never heard of anything like that.
• I realize families are raised in the city but there was something so odd about seeing a child..especially a baby..in the city.  They seemed like polar opposites.  And I don’t know how moms do it with strollers and the subway.  Seriously.
• Just FYI, we saw this guy with a Puggle.  It’s a mix between a Pug and a Beagle and it was the cutest thing ever!
• There were so many gay people. Not trying to weird about it or anything but there’s just not that many openly gay people around here.  It was just odd to see two men walk hand in hand down the street.  It just doesn’t happen here.
• I mentioned the Apple store briefly in a tweet but let me just say the Apple store is cool.  If you’re an Apple fan or even just an fan of architecture, go see it.

I think this wraps up my series on #HBC.  I’m sure you’re breathing a sigh of relief.  Good for you, because I’m not.  Now I have absolutely nothing to write about except car lines and dirty houses again.

#HBC The Photo Shoot

Alright, we’re on the home stretch, people.  I promise there is an end in sight to all these #HBC posts.  Now, I COULD come up with about 4 more posts if you’d like but I might just squish some random things I noticed into one last post after this.  Anyway.  Let’s finally talk about the reason I went — to get a picture with BusyDad the shoot.

(Let me stop here to say BusyDad definitely lives up to his hot blogger name and I really do mean I have a little bloggy crush on him but I want to be clear–mostly for my mother’s sake because she worries about my little crushes, bless her heart–that I love my husband and think he is hot as well and I know BusyDad has a wife that is super-duper gorgeous and he has absolutely no reason to pay any attention to my blogging nonsense.  Just having a little fun.  Except I really do mean that he’s hot.  And I really did make Heather take our picture even though she didn’t want to.)

OK, so you’ve read about how long it took to get there.  Sarah was waiting for us downstairs and brought us up.  When we got there, BackpackingDad was getting his picture taken, his wife was sitting on the couch along with the makeup artist Jillian.  BusyDad was on his laptop, Bill and Meg were working on the photos and Jane’s parents Barry and Sharon were sitting on the sidelines watching everything.  Me?   I walk in and while I planted a smile on my face and was truly excited to be there, my hands were shaking.  I’d worked myself up into a tizzy even though I didn’t want to admit it and couldn’t really pinpoint one thing I was nervous about.  I’d given myself a headache for about 24 hours and I was feeling it.

First order of business was picking out my outfit though.  I laid out about half my clothes.  And by the way, I took more than three outfits really.  Here’s what I took:

• black dress pants
• white dress pants
• black shorts
• dark jeans
• both black shirts
• pink flowered shirt
• green shirt
• blue dress

That’s like a total of about 20 outfits if I mix and match.  Do you think *I* could have actually made a decision and picked 3 or less??  NO!!  I get only halfway through my selections and Bill says what’s that blue thing hanging in there?  As soon as I pull it out he (and maybe Jane/Sarah) says that’s it and while I’m sure Heather was saying, “See, told ya!”  Y’all, seriously.  And I mean, seriously, was *this close* to leaving that dress in the hotel room.  We even talked about it before I left.  Heather was like, just take it in case!!

So off I went to the bathroom to change.  I came back and got my hair ready with shaky hands.  I dropped the top to my hair paste on the floor, literally almost burned my face with my flat-iron and Dani looked at me and said, “OK, let’s calm down and get it together.”  And I think I did as soon as Jillian started doing my makeup.  She says either people hate it or love it.  I loved it.  I love when anybody ever does anything for me (service love language anyone?).  And having a makeup artist make my face look good? Well, that just takes the cake.  I relaxed and got to the point where I was getting sleepy.  I think the tension slowly went out right there in the makeup chair.

There are only a few times in your life that you know without a shadow of a doubt you look your best.  Maybe not THE best but YOUR best.

That was one of them.  I stuck on my silver high heels and said where do you want me?

I’m usually really, really nervous in front of people.  My neck and face turn red and my hands shake and when people notice, it gets worse.  But not then.  I stood or sat where they told me and looked at the camera with a confidence I wasn’t sure quite sure I knew I had.  I joked with Scott when I got home that all of our photo shoots at home had paid off LOL.  No, not every photo was perfect but I didn’t expect it to be.  I’m sure everyone’s supportive compliments helped put me at ease but I don’t know.  I’ve never been less nervous in my life and the worst thing I heard all day was Bill saying, “OK, I think we got it.”  I think I might have dropped the phrase, “I could try another outfit” one too many times.  I literally could do that every day of my life.  Yes, my knees hurt and my ankles hurt from standing like I was for 30 minutes but it was so worth it.

Going back to the bathroom and changing into corduroy pants and printed tee felt a lot like midnight for Cinderella.  I don’t mean to be overly dramatic for the sake of the post but honestly, those 45 minutes or so were really some of the best 45 minutes of my life.  I have never felt more confident, more free, more HOT than almost any other time that I can recall.  Seriously.

My blog isn’t very popular and I know I’m not the hottest person ever but you know what?  That calendar is going to have one of the best moments of my life captured in it.  And you know, I’m not going to apologize for it.

Thank, you Sarah and Jane for coming up with this crazy idea and no matter what people might think of this whole hot blogger calendar or how many sell, you helped make a little Southern girl feel like a princess for a day.  And that, my friends, is hot.  (Who knew I could channel John McCain AND Paris Hilton in one sentence??)

#HBC Paramount Hotel

How about we talk about something safe like a hotel review?  I don’t want to make this drawn out but I do have to say I had high hopes for the Paramount.  It was supposed to be mod, unique and fun.  And yes, the lobby and little bar were very cool and the room looked pretty cool, but I have to give the room a thumbs down.

The room was small.  Which I KNOW is normal for NY but I stayed at the Marriott right beside the Paramount when I went to New York in 2001 and there was no comparison even though the price difference wasn’t that big.

The bathroom made weird noises and smelled of sewer at times.  Not a stinky bathroom but actual sewer.  There was no countertop space even though the sink WAS cool.  The shower felt dirty and the shower curtain was flimsy and stuck to you while you showered.

The beds were on the floor.  I’m all for a platform bed but this was just a mattress and boxspring on the floor and we felt like we were camping.  What’s worse is the beds SQUEAKED when you moved on them.  AND they were very worn and we sank to the middle.  It did have a nice down comforter and pillows going for it though.

The floor carpet also just looked and felt dirty.  We were scared to touch anything that had fallen on it.  But I guess that’s standard for any hotel room.

I don’t know, I guess some of it was par for the course in New York but I do know I had a much better experience at The Marriott last time AND I can plan to save up my Marriott gift cards for next time to cushion the difference.

#HBC The non-post about the bags we didn’t buy

I hope I don’t get into trouble on this post.  I’m going to try to be discreet and if I’m being dumb and ignorant in any way, forgive me.  I didn’t ask many questions and had no idea this was around.  I just followed.  If it’s well known and public and I’m being TOO discreet, well, I apologize for that too.

We went to the part of New York where a lot of Asian people are and the streets are packed and very busy.  Catch my drift yet?  Women and men would come up to you and ask you if you want Coach, Prada?  If you didn’t walk away, you barely needed to nod your head in assent they said “Follow me” and off you were following them quickly to who knows where.  Sometimes you’d follow them to the store directly behind you and in some cases we had to walk a block or two. Here is a covert picture we took being led to such a place.

We’d be ushered the store, walk toward what looked like a normal wall and then see that there would be a secret door.  It would open up, usually revealing stairs.  Some went up and some went down.  Either way, they were usually steep.  Those led to a landing where we were then sometimes taken to another room which was locked.  The rooms were usually about 10×15 or so, sometimes much smaller and stacked with Gucci, Coach, Prada, Duney and Burke and Dolce and Gabana purses, sunglasses, wallets and sometimes scarves.  The door was locked behind us and one worker would stay in there with us to make deals with.

Dani was tasked by a friend at home to buy four purses and of course we couldn’t left out.  After at least five stores and way too many stairs, we left the town of Asian people with I think 6 bags and 2 pairs of sunglasses.

But lo and behold Dani pulls out her list from her friend and she was supposed to get two BLACK Coaches not two BROWN Coaches.

So Dani says she has some money left over and there are usually guys near Times Square with bags of them and she’ll just get them later.  So we were out late Sunday night and went and got some cheesecake.  Heather and I are in front of Dani walking out of the store and all the sudden Dani screams something and pushes past us.  We didn’t see a thing but a guy is out on the street with bags.  Woah.  She must have smelled them coming.  But they only have one black one.  But then another guy walks up and talks to him with another bag but walks away.  Dani finds out it’s the guy’s brother and Dani takes off after him.  We follow him half a block and he turns around.  So we turn around.  We started joking, “Coach?! Prada?!  Follow me!”  The guy finally saw our interest and stopped and got the bag she wanted.  Here may or may not be our loot.

#HBC Food Worth Talking About

There are two things I had recommended by EDW that must be passed on.

Angelo and Maxie’s Filet Oscar.  Let’s note first that Heather actually got a steak salad…so proud!  But the steak.  And the crab on top.  And the hollandaise on top.  Oh my word.  Honestly, if you looked “savory” up in the dictionary, a picture of my plate must be in there.  It was like melt in your mouth goodness.  On my last bite, I LITERALLY closed my eyes and held my hands out as if I was meditating.  I wanted to remember that taste THAT much.  DO NOT PASS GO until you get this.

One more thing I have to note.  That stuff in the middle? It’s my “side”.  I ordered onion strings thinking it would a few on the “side” of my plate.  No!  It’s like an appetizer.  Also note the HUGE “side” of potatoes beside that.  All three of us dipped in those.  They were DELISH as well.

And just one more thing.  It’s a very nice restaurant but even better?  They played Pink and Usher instead of elevator music.  Great atmosphere.

The price?  $111 for everything you see on the table.  No drinks.  Just water.  Yes, it’s a splurge dinner.

Junior’s. Cheesecake.  DO NOT PASS GO.  In fact, go order it online.

#HBC The amazing and talented Sephora Guy

Wow, who knew I could get so many blog posts out of 48 hours in New York.  I mean, really.  But I just have to tell you about our Sephora trip.  First off, Jillian (who is also amazing and talented) used this AMAZING eye liner.  It looked great, felt great and even better STAYED IN PLACE for hours!  We were asking her throughout the makeup session who made what as I know she must have used 15 different products on my face.  But we could not remember who made the eyeliner as we stood in Sephora in Times Square.  We looked around and nothing.  All we know is it was a short, fat hot pink pencil.

We asked the lady and she literally laughed at us but went off and asked this guy that was working.  He said, “Oh, that’s BADgal.  It’s at the front of the store.”  WOW.  Dani, who being much more familiar with Sephora than my Sephora-virgin self, took me straight to the display and found it.  Ta-da.

But, wait, it gets better.  We really wanted this glitter stuff that was on my eye but were clueless.  So we walk back over to him to test him.  I close my eye and say, I need to know where to get this stuff.  He stares at it and says, “Try Make Up For Ever“  And sure enough, there were lots of little pots of glitter right on the bottom row.  We weren’t convinced it was exactly the right thing so I didn’t get any and I actually need to check with Jillian to see if that’s what it was.  But, by golly, that guy was IMPRESSIVE.

*Now patiently waiting for free product offer for the post.*

*Please*

*$20 for eyeliner is a bit rich for my taste*

#HBC The menses

And by menses, I do mean multiple men.  We were utterly amazed at the difference between men in New York and men in the South.  No wonder some people complain when they come South.   We determined in the South, there are really only a few types of (casual) dressers.

• The jeans and tennis shoes guy
• The shorts and flip flops guy
• A mix of the above.  Like, some guy will wear shorts and tennis shoes or jeans and flip flops
• The Wranglers and boots guy
• The 3X shirt and 5 sizes too big low-slung jeans and tennis shoes guy

That about covers it all.  Scott is a tennis shoes guy with jeans in the winter and shorts in the summer.  I would venture to guess Dani would say her husband is a tennis shoes and shorts guy all year round.  The rednecks true Southern men wear Wranglers and boots (don’t get me wrong on the redneck comment….just go look at Ree’s husband in some Wranglers..there is NO complaining here).

But in New York?  You know what we saw?  A tourist OR a hot local man.  And said hot man was wearing:

• Designer jeans that fit very nicely
• A shirt. Usually a printed tee.  Maybe a tight sweater.
• Or, if we were lucky, he had a suit on but hey, it was the weekend.
• Sometimes a short, well-fit black leather jacket
• Nice shoes..either box-toe dress shoes or cute oxford tennis shoes.
• If it was a bit chilly, a nice scarf
• And usually, the really hot ones had shaved their heads
• And usually they were of some descent that made them tan.  Couldn’t figure out WHAT they were.  Arabic? Mexican? Italian?

And this was the NORM.  Every corner we were going WOW, he was hot, wow, he was hot.  In fact, Heather started snapping undercover photos on her iPhone of the guys.  And if she didn’t have the right angle?  She passed her phone to me so *I* could snap the photo.  It became almost a game and let me tell you, it was a fun one.

As soon as we hit the airport Monday morning, our luck was out and we were quickly greeted by many jeans/flip-flop guys who in their own right can be cute but nothing like a HOT New York man.  And don’t you even second-guess there will be a shopping trip for Scott coming up!

And just for fun, here are just two of them snapped at the #HBC dinner Saturday night.  The guy sitting down had a multi-color scarf on on his way out.  And wow, the second one is still HOT.  Like, Wentworth Miller HOT.

#HBC Howard Stern

We took the subway to dinner at Angelo & Maxie’s (more on that later!) Sunday evening.  We sat in a row about two benches down from the end of the car and a tall, skinny man with very bushy, curly hair got on with a skinny blonde lady towards the end of our car.  They stood close for the ride and were obviously together but didn’t stand out too much.  The guy wore glasses and jeans.  The girl was pretty casual.  I think she had some type of hat on (Dani/Heather..?  my brain is already failing from 3 days ago).  I think we commented that the guy looked like Howard Stern.

We all got off at Park & 22nd with them in front of us.  As we walked onto the sidewalk, the guy kind of turned around and looked us but then continued across the street.  Later on, we determined that was most definitely Howard Stern and his brand new wife and I think he might have been disappointed we didn’t say anything to him when he turned around.

I’m not a huge Howard Stern fan so I’m not too disappointed but it would have been cool to meet a “star” and get pictures either way.  Especially the day after they got married.

#HBC Family Circus

OK before I write this post you have to know I’m usually GREAT at maps and directions in general.  I’m usually NOT the one to freak out when there is somewhere new to go.  Just a little Google Maps and I’m ready to head out.  In fact, I’m usually the one with the map in hand telling people where to turn.  But something happened this weekend.  I think the subway baffled me to the point I could not think straight.  And also the idea of “ish”.  Like it’s on 47th and 8th - ish.  I knew we’d be close but just one or two blocks away seemed to add another 15 minutes backtracking and getting on course.

Take Dani and I’s trip from the hotel to Junior’s.  It SHOULD have only been a cut-through a parking lot from 46th to 47th and down one building.  But I got confused on my little map I had printed and marked the restaurants we were going to with “R”s.  The green in the picture is what we should have done and the red is what we really did.

Basically what happened is I was headed from the hotel (A) to 51st and 9th (C) where dinner was Saturday night instead of heading towards Junior’s (B).  Whoops.  Should have paid attention to my map a little more.  That one wasn’t so bad.  I WAS going the right way IF we were going to dinner.

Our troubles continued though.  We tried the subway on Saturday but the subway map I had just wasn’t clear enough on where you got on the thing and where the thing stopped.  So while I could tell what line to get on, I wasn’t sure how close it would get us.  I was so scared it would land us in Queens or Brooklyn (and getting us lost and wasting time, I presumed) that we just avoided it altogether.  In fact, we actually bought tickets, walked down into the the place, asked a guy and he was like “why are you here?  you guys aren’t lazy, you could just walk that.”  So out we went, wasting our $2.  We didn’t attempt it the rest of the day.

So Sunday we FINALLY got the hang of it but I had a really bad headache and we needed to carry two bags to the photo shoot so we decided to take a cab.  Door-to-door service right?  The green is what we SHOULD have done on the subway.  The red is our cab ride (straight line) and walk (dotted line ).

I don’t know if that cab ride is exactly right  but it is REALLY close.  What happened is the polish-slavic parade was going down Park (I think) and the guy kept going around the block trying to get through but couldn’t.  He finally dropped us off somewhere around 34th, said we needed to walk a block and pick up another cab, even waiving our $5 tip and apologizing profusely.  But by that time we decided to hike it the rest of the way.  But then I got confused because I thought Park Ave was the same thing as 5th and I didn’t realize 7th and Broadway weren’t the same thing anymore.  Needless to say, we did some backtracking on 28th.

After this, we DID manage to do well on a few trips on the subway. We took the subway back to the hotel from the shoot, made it to China Town and also to dinner near Union Square and then back home.  We were doing SO well and getting things accomplished so much faster.

Until.

The wretched Apple Store trip.  I didn’t know where to get on the subway except for Times Square at 42nd, not realizing I could get on at 49th and taking the subway almost directly to the store so I decided hey, let’s take the fancy little Shuttle to Grand Central Station and head UP Lexington and then just walk a few blocks to Apple.  This is how our trip went.  Green is what we should have done, Red solid line where we took the subway and red dotted line where we walked.

So once again I was confused on this 5th street and Park Ave thing.  The whole “ish” thing came into play again.  We got confused on what direction we were going after getting off the stop at Lexington and 60th causing us to “wiki-wiki-wiki” right in front of some car holding a couple that seemed to be in the throws of a break-up.  Sorry about your break-up AND the disturbance, couple on 60th.  Anyway, it was a DISASTER.  We spent almost THREE HOURS going to and from the Apple Store.

Please, those familiar with New York and its public transportation, don’t laugh too long at us.

#HBC Grease

Another thing that confused me a little is where all these Broadway theaters were.  Were they big and protruding on the street..mixed together like a movie theater…how does all this look?  Well, if you look at this picture of 47th street, you can barely tell that the sign for the theater where Grease is playing is mid-left in the picture.  It looks pretty much like any other sign.  Now, saying that….some of the theaters are insanely gorgeous on the outside.  It amazes me how old and still how beautiful they are.  Just look at this picture I snapped inside.  You can see how intricate and amazing they are.   And the thing is I know some are even better than the one we were in.

Anyway, on to the show.  Laura and Max that won Grease:  You’re the One that I Want were not there. But that’s ok.  Ace Young (former American Idol contestant) WAS there, playing the part of Kenickie.  He entirely stole the show for us.  I’m not sure if they changed the show just for him or not but it was definitely changed from the movie.  For example…Kenickie is the one that sings Greased Lightning.  And Ace did it with a wife beater and tight little jeans on in a fancy little red car and may I say Ace must have been working out lately??  He even had backup dancers and yes, they may all have been gay but that little number was my favorite from the whole thing.

They also did not have the whole race car scene at the end so that other group of guys they raced were never around.  They had one scene where Kenickie and another T-bird were outside waiting on them with sticks and such but they never showed and made it a funny scene about one of them showing up with an antenna as a weapon.

They also changed the drive-in scene where Rizzo talks about being pregnant to being at someone’s house playing music with Sandy’s record player.  Rizzo sings There are Worst Things I Could Do here.

Everything moved well and it was over before we knew it.  They had all the popular songs in there and for the most part, the singing was great.  We enjoyed ourselves a lot but I really think a lot had to do with us being familiar with Ace and enjoying his, um, performance.  Heather was a rebel and snuck a picture at the end.  Ace is fourth from the right.

#HBC TKTS Discount Booths

OK, this was going to be a review of Grease but apparently I felt a need to do a whole post worth of info on the ticket booth.

The plan was to go see a Broadway show Sunday night but Saturday when we got there it was drizzling a bit and we were right across the street from the ticket booth so we decided to go ahead and do the whole ticket booth thing and do a matinee.

This whole ticket booth thing seemed a bit confusing and a painful process before I left last week.  I had many questions…where exactly was it? What time did it open?  What shows would we get to see?  Their site was/is very helpful but I’m too
much of a visual person and want to know what to expect.

The first picture shows that you can see all the show times.  You pick two or three you’d like to see and stand in line.  I’ve heard of one hour wait times but we waited no more than 15 minutes.  The first picture was taken from the line and the booths are right around the corner from there.  You can see in the second picture we were on the other side standing out on the sidewalk and it gets a bit crowded near the booths but it was very quick once you got up there.  Our first pick was Wicked but they weren’t selling tickets to that so we went with Grease.  I was a bit hesitant to pick that but you’ll see in my next post that it was a great pick.

#HBC - My “Deal”

I have no idea where to start on telling the stories from this weekend so let’s just start with something fun.

Dani and I had headed out to shop while Heather napped Saturday evening.  We stopped by one of many street vendors who were selling a multitude of things.  This one table had a bunch of pictures from the city and these two pictures caught my eye.  I started staring intently at the guy’s stuff and of course he started making deals for me.

His sign said a 5×7 was $10 and the larger size (pictured above) was $20.  I was flipping through the smaller size and he says “Right now, $7!”  I continued to look, not sure which print I was interested in and he throws out, “For you right now, $6″.  Hmm, you guys know I love a deal!  “What about the larger print?” I ask.  He says $15.  I start looking at the two prints above trying to decide which to take.  The fall one would be nice.  I have a lot of red in my house and I LOVE trees.  But the other shows more of the city and I also have those blue and brown tones in my living room.

He gets them off the board and says “Both of them $20!”  Oh, half price!  I can’t make a decision on one and it sounds like a deal!  I’m in!  I hand him a $20 bill and I was off.  Dani and I continue across Broadway down 46th and head towards Park Ave to shop and wouldn’t you know the next block we pass has the same dern pictures and a sign for $1.99?

#HBC The Day After

Wow.  I am so overwhelmed from the weekend.  It was probably the most jam packed, satisfying, fun, dizzying, exhausting, wonderfully wonderful 48 hours of my life.  I have a mile long list of things to blog about but I know everyone wants to see pictures.  So here is where they are hiding on the Internet…

Here is every single picture we took in New York.  Some very boring.  Some taken just for Emma and Lexi.  Many fuzzy and dark ones.  But a few good ones.

Here are just the photo shoot ones I took.

A few other bloggers are adding their photos from the shoot to Flickr and tagging them with hotbloggercalendar09.

Katja took a great one of me and a chocolate doughnut :)  She’s supposed to be uploading more.

—————————————————————

And just for the record, here are the wonderful people that were there this weekend.  I was able to meet most of them.  For those I didn’t (including the HBs that weren’t able to make it to NY), I truly regret our paths didn’t cross and hoping for it in the future!

Sarah and  Jane (The ones who started all this!) Wonderfully wonderful people.  Really.  So sweet, down to earth and REAL!  They make meeting people from the Internet not-so-scary

Peter Shankman (HARO) Full of energy guy I’m grateful to for picking up the tab Saturday night

Miss Britt Full of energy and smiles

Poppy and NYCWatchDog We sat across from these two at dinner and had a great conversation…even when he did start talking about Dragonland and our eyes went all glassy

Jill Notkin, from Alex Casey Baby and The Daily Grind Unfortunately didn’t get to spend too much time with

Erika, from Chick Shopper Chick So sweet and bright.  She was like sunshine walking around.

Katja, from Skimbaco A talented lady with a big heart.  Very warm and inviting.

Shawn, from Backpacking Dad So in love with his wife it’s almost too much to handle.

Jim, from Busy Dad Mr. GQ. And my new blog crush.

These last three I was not able to meet

Josh, from The Comic’s Curmudgeon

Riese, from This Girl Called Automatic Win

Francesco, from Francesco Explains It All

Bill Wadman TALENTED photographer and his assistant Meg Wachter

Jillian Villafane, our AWESOME makeup artist. Can I please have her at my house every morning??

And I can’t forget about Jane’s Mom Sharon and her husband Barry

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You are going to be sick of hearing about this New York weekend…this is just the start!