Blend 2012

This past weekend I did something I haven’t done in almost 2 months – I put on some big girl clothes and hung out with a bunch of women my age by myself.  WHOA now.  Get excited!

 

Seriously though, I hung out with the indescribably awesome group of bloggers at the Blend Retreat in Boulder and had the best time.  I’ve always said one of the things I love most about blogging is the community of people that come together to love and support one another.  People that I never would have met otherwise.  People whose friendship has encouraged me for years and year now.  In a nutshell it’s awesome!

 

It’s my belief that we should always start with dessert first:

Friday night I drove up to Boulder to hang out with everyone at the cocktail hour and welcome dinner at the Chautauqua Dining Hall and the first thing I saw when I walked in the door (besides all of the lovely ladies) was this table of goodness:

I mean really, how could anyone resist that?!  Apparently the company that makes these cupcakes (the name escapes me…) donates all of their proceeds to the Boulder Homeless Shelter.  Which means I can feel good eating like 20,000 cupcakes.  Duh.

 

We started off the dinner with a light green salad:

And I had my FIRST glass of wine (really my first sip of alcohol) since having Wes!  I knew Nate was going to be feeding him that night and the alcohol would cycle out of the breastmilk before I actually had to pump or feed Wes again, so I went for it.  Isn’t it fun how the word “breastmilk” automatically makes wine sound less glamorous?  I’m so cool I can’t stand it…

The dinner was pretty good; I actually had eaten beforehand since I wasn’t sure how things were going to go down so I just sort of picked at it.  It was some sort of grilled chicken with quinoa (the quinoa was incredible) and steamed broccoli.  I ate the quinoa and broccoli and called it quits…more room for cupcakes, you know!

 

Before the dinner actually started we got to meet all of the Blend sponsors and Lindsay, Katie and Janetha all spoke a little bit about the retreat.  It was SO fun to finally meet these amazing women in person!  Especially after following their blogs for so long and getting to know them online, and I have to say that they are even more fabulous in person.

I enjoyed dinner that night sitting with Tina (girl, I LOVE you!  Atlanta trip SOON!), Ashley, Kelsey, Courtney and Alyssa and had an absolute blast.  To be around so many funny, sweet, talented and strong women is so encouraging and empowering!  I went home that night feeling so excited about the hike the next day and just so happy to be part of the blogging community.

 

The next morning I drove back up to Boulder for the scheduled hike at Chautauqua park, which is actually where we’ve always done most of our hiking anyway.  It’s super accessible and there’s a large variety of hikes to go on.  The picture below is actually me a couple years ago at the top of the Royal Arch hike, which is the same one we did Saturday.  The biggest difference though?  I was actually in super-amazing-hiking shape then and was able to make it to the top without dying.  Saturday?  Not so much.

Below is a picture I stole from Ashley‘s Instagram feed right after I came down from the top.  Holy goodness, I was dead after that!  Quads a’shaking, body a’sweating and heart a’pumping.  Yeah, taking a year off from hiking to be pregnant and have a baby will kind of do that to you.  At least I have an excuse, right?

 

Right?

 

Hello?

After the hike I ended up going down to the Boulder Farmer’s Market with Ash, Janetha, Lindsay and Katie and just enjoyed the walk through Boulder with good friends.  We had the most perfect weather you could imagine, and the company was absolutely awesome.  After the market I ended up heading home because my body was dead and I needed to feed Weston, but the times I shared with these amazing blends (blogger + friend = blend) is something I will always cherish.

 

Can’t wait for Blend 2013!