**Warning. Long post, with lots of pics. Feel free to leave comments, and if I missed a link to you, let me know! Thanks everyone!**

This year was my first ever BlogHer Conference… and despite what I’ve seen around the blogosphere, I had an amazing time. I had wonderful sponsors that made it possible for me to attend (Walmart), and look good while I was there (Old Navy, Torrid, JCPenney, PurpleLabNYC). I had awesome friends that I was so excited to see again (you know who you are!) I met so many other awesome people that I follow on Twitter, and had never met in person before this conference. Here’s a little run down of what I got to do while I was in Chicago…
Day 1- My trip over was awful. We got stuck in Charlotte, on the tarmac, due to some pretty bad thunderstorms. The airport pretty much shut down. Of course, we couldn’t get off of the plane and it was packed… uggg. Finally around 1230ish we took off, on our way to Chicago…
The flight was very uneventful. I couldn’t sleep, even though I wanted to so badly. I landed safely, and my driver arrived just as I found my luggage… He had thought I was flying in United so he parked waaaaay on the other side.. lovely.. It was a long walk back. Got into the hotel around 145am, checked in, found my room and crashed.
Day 2- Thursday morning I woke up so early. Mind you, I’m now on Central time, and I’m used to Eastern time. My first reaction is to grab my phone and check out tweetdeck, etc. My roomie.. the infamous ConsumerQueen wakes up and asks “Are you seriously tweeting in bed?” Hahahaha.. Yes.. And this folks… was the beginning of a whirlwind of fun!
The first day consisted of a meeting with our mega – sponsor: Walmart! We had breakfast and brainstorming.. of course not without coffee and tea.. We had a great time! From there BlogHer Business… We missed lunch, so we checked out an interesting little place called Dick’s Last Resort.

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… Um.. yeah. That was interesting. If you’ve never been there.. it’s a place where the servers are rude to you, they pick on you… it’s actually quite funny.

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After that we got ourselves ready for SocialLuxe. She was up for an award, and she won!

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The coolest part, is that if you felt like you were running out of steam, you could go grab a quick cup of the best coffee evah!

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We had a few places to be that evening, so we didn’t stay the entire time. We got our swag, she did a couple of interviews and we left. We had to get ready for the  Crocs Party hosted by this guy:

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Yes, that is @GeorgeGSmithJr, someone I’m proud to call a friend  🙂

We arrived at the Chicago Crocs Store and saw this:

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Crocs, crocs, and more crocs. I was in heaven. I found shoes that I really want

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and these:

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and then we got to see the new fall line coming out!!!

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Seriously, I’m going to go broke buying shoes this fall! Consumer Queen even found shoes she wanted to take home with her:

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After Crocs, we were hungry.. We had drinks with John Andrews and the Collective Bias crew at Japonais… A beautiful Japanese food restaurant. We couldn’t stay long though, because we had dinner plans with our friends at Tide/Bounce at a Bistro not far from there. I had an amazing Salmon dish. I have no idea what it was called… but it was soooo good…

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I’m pretty sure we just crashed after that. We were so tired, and had to be up super early the next morning for breakfast with a famous person!

Day 3- Friday morning.. the first official day of BlogHer. The Walmart crew, including the ElevenMoms enjoyed a delicious breakfast at Tutto Pronto, with Dave Lieberman from the Food Network. He’s a very cool guy, and the new chef behind the Walmart Great Value brand of foods.

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On our way back from breakfast, we were greeted by the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile… Oh how we wanted to break out in song… but we didn’t.. instead we just posed for pics riding “shot bun” … Why not right?!?!?!

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Onward to the Expo! An awesome setup for bloggers and company reps to talk, network and build amazing relationships. Here we met the Laundry Fairy

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the Michelin Man

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The Jump Start Doggie

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and even Mrs Potatohead.

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I even got to chat with the folks who make one of my fave cleaning products!

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After all the fun chatting with the company reps, we had a cocktail party to attend with Hanes! We went back to our room to get all dolled up… We did have a long night full of parties!! We were introduced to Comfortinis

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posed with our cute sock roses

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and had an all around great time.

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Thank you Hanes Comfort Crew for an awesome time!
Next on the itinerary was the EnergizHer Party. I found the Energizer bunny… He really does keep going.. and going.. and.. well, you get the picture.

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Next it was off to the Nikon Night Out party. We piled into limos,

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and I was one of the first people to interview Carson Kressley!

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We had an all around great time… oh, and can’t forget the cocktails here either. They had some great ones, all named after photography of course. Thanks gals for a great time!

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Of course, no conference is complete without a mini-pajama party… I’ll save the photos of that one… but all I have to say is… Where’s #jeff??? @OrganizerSandy‘s bestest friend evah!

Day 4- The final day of BlogHer. Went to breakfast, watched Dave Lieberman and Amy from @MomAdvice cook up some yummy food on the big screen. Then I was hungry all over again! 🙂 Later on in the morning, we went to the E.L.F. suite to check out their makeup. I found out that they have some of the most affordable makeup around! Even their mineral makeup is pretty amazingly priced.

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Lunch was sponsored by Tide and Gymboree.

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We ate some awesome food and then checked out the Tide Stain Release power at our tables. Check out that oxygen action

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Believe it or not… It actually worked. I was pretty surprised!

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Before they let us go, they let us do some shopping! Thanks to Gymboree for giving us an outfit of choice from your new fall line of clothes! I can’t wait till they come out so I can get my girls some stylin’ outfits!

After lunch, the ElevenMoms were treated to a private meet and greet with Paula Deen! She posed for photos with all of us individually. Here’s mine:

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Then she signed autographs for us,

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and then posed for a group photo with all of us!

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Truly an amazing afternoon. She has such a beautiful smile! Thanks so much Paula Deen for spending so much time with us!
Right after that, we rushed down to the Tide Suite to meet Tim Gunn. He is so much fun! I loved talking to him!

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The final shindig… #BowlHer at the Lucky Strike Bowling Lanes.

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Sponsored by Collective Bias, One2One Network and #GNO, it was the best party of the conference! Here’s @Katadhin making a few announcements to the party-goers.

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We even had a mini celebration for @GeekMommy‘s birthday the next day! She’s My Hero!

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Can’t forget @craftymamaof4.. a superb hostess!

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I know they had several musical performances, but I only made it back to watch Brooke White. Her music is intoxicating. She has a beautiful voice, and I absolutely loved listening to her perform. If you haven’t yet, go get her newest album, High Hopes & Heartbreak! It’s amazing!

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So, as you can see, I had a great time. I didn’t see any drama, didn’t see any craziness. I was able to meet up with many great friends from around the blogosphere, and twitter. I’ll have to give my shout outs in a bit. I’m still organizing my brain!

Thanks everyone for an amazing time, and for going through this long post. I warned you! It was going to be a photo journal! I can’t wait to see everyone at BlogHer 2010 in NYC!