"I was the kid next door's imaginary friend." Emo Phillips

I have started this post countless times.
I am really sorry for the delay.
I don't think have the words to capture all that went on in some cases..
and in others--I don't think there are words.


I was away.
On an adventure.by myself.
I didn't take enough pictures- So I am resharing mostly pics my friends took.So any photocredit goes to them.

When I told most my real life friends, I was going to St.Louis to meet a bunch of old friends... they just assumed it was some people I knew that moved there,
or that maybe I lived there before ( I have only ever lived in Florida ,- and in this general east coast & central part, keep up people!)

.. but no.
I wasn't meeting sorority sisters,
or for a wedding party,
or high school reunion,
or family reunion...
(though we were confused for all of those things at one point or another)
More of a net reunion.

I had met two families before when they came to my area-- but the others, I have only known from the internet.

We've chatted , supported each other , gave advice ,late night phone calls ,
and even argued, for years ....
Some I have posted along side of for 6 years, others are newer- some have been friends long before I came along to their corner of the net -
- in search of breastfeeding advice, of all things.

..That's right, I know most of my net friends because of boobs.I mean, are you really surprised?
In the years since that,I moved past discussing just breastfeeding related issues,we bonded over other things, we had debate boards
some of the board members came for debate, some never even had children, and others had/have long since weaned. (many were there long before me, some are newer)

I don't know how to describe the connection with these women from all across the country that I have shared virtual hugs, long phone conversations, advice, birthdays, inside jokes,laughter, and sorrows with for over 6 years.
When the talk of a summer weekend get together came up ,
I joked with Ri that I should go- and he was like "you know, you should"

.. My flight was Thursday after a long ass car ride ( and Rory got carsick) to Orlando Air --
Why did I fly out of Orlando,
because it was cheaper,
but was it really worth it in the end?
Shut.up.


No.It wasn't worth it. I will never fly out of Orlando again... if only because of that overcrowded jerky tram I had to smush into.




However, as TERRIFIED as I was of security, it was practically a non-issue.
And the flight part, that I was weirdly looking forward too - was instead Sort of not as fun; my ears popped ,I was cramped , nauseous (nervous) and the whole last hour of the flight the pilot had the seat belt light on because of the fogs/haze turbulence.
When I got to the airport - My ride plans had changed and I ended up riding with a group that got a rental car-- which was a hilarious mini trip in itself , figuring out how to navigate through the airport and town.

I was sort of overwhelmed Thursday night after coming in.
I was INSTANTLY exhausted after the flght
, AND to top it off soo many people I have known for YEARS but not really known were now.RIGHT.There. It was a lot to take in.
Some pics another friend took-

She was totally cuter than expect- even her voice was even adorable.


They were both HILARIOUS.( I don't know who's comfy with names- and so I'll avoid that for the most part.. net people are weird like that ;) )

I don't think I have ever laughed so much.
It was weird to feel like I already knew them all.

I was happy though to go back to Mimi's fairly early being soo tired and sort of overwhelmed. Mimi had soo sweetly invited me to stay at her house, her hubby and her were all too, too kind. She is the board Gram to many of us, AND I found out she shares her birthDAY with my actual gram(not year, my gram is older).
We sat up drinking wine and chatting. About dogs, our kids, her grandkids, how we got to know each other on the boards, and facebook..
and wine.
She drinks strong wine. I was soon surprisingly very drunk. Brushed my teeth ,and went to bed

The next morn - My Best friend tata came , with her friend,
She picked me up and took me to the hotel, were they were hoping to get their pictures taken early ,from the photographer that had come to town (and she was a HUGE part of organizing and getting soo many people to come- her pictures are that amazing and I am totally kicking myself for not getting a session).
-- tata's pics still ended up being on Saturday anyway
(once the clouds rolled in . )
I don't think either of us minded hanging out while they did make up and chatted in the prep room anyway. :)

I was READY Friday for it all, after some rest and getting over some of the nerves- I was better prepped handle all the meet and greet, which was damn good timing because WAY more people had come in:
There were many silly convos , and I loved how we would go from talking about our kids, to apps -- or message board jokes- craziness.
and LOTS of giggling over accents

tata, Mrs.R, and me


tata, Mimi and me.


Oohh!
Prisca brought her youngest . All rolls and dimples- I wanted to pinch her to pieces.



Don't you?
She was soo happy just to be in the room with all the noise and talking.





More Awesomely awesome people.
Jen(the blond) is from Jersey and has the best accent ever- I kept making her say words with ASS in them.JackAAaaass and Klaaassy being favs.
& Ham ( what I call the the brunette,) parties like no other, she is a crazy awesome trip. I've posted along side her perhaps the longest... she was one of the few imaginary internet friends Ri knew of, when I would be rambling about message board going ons.
and our kids (Rory and her oldest) are close aged.





...and yeah I've mentioned tata is awesome plenty before.
she is awesome.

-- This girl is awesomesause, too,

I DID NOT expect these people who are soo witty ,clever and gorgeous online to be as much so , in person.
and I was very very wrong for misjudging that...
Every last one of them was MORE so in person (funny, witty , beautiful ect) than they are online.

Most of them are shorter than I thought though,
- or I am taller than I thought,
or I was wearing ridiculous heels
- or all of the above.




(I'm probably laughing at something Jen said funny)

LOVE this one.



I cannot explain my phone in that position. We all saw this pic and posted this picture, I didn't notice until I went to make it my profile picture that my phone placement is so...
awkward... behind.um. her behind.

LOL

We waited for a shuttle and went out to a bar in search of bar food

There were many jokes , and convos - and some dancing



I ate this

I danced here

and we still ended up back at the hotel before pool close hours..
but I forgot my bag in tata's car,
and tata had went to stay a night at a different hotel
...so I borrowed a suit

because these two women are awesome.

At some point there were drunken fountain pictures,
then this happened:
I don't know that guy, or the guy that took the pic- but for a few switcharoo pics of us with them

and We ended up with a pic of us four

and some of their beer--
yeah. crazy crazy time.. and I was smoking a cig in that pic. I don't even normally smoke those.

We stayed up way late- not that I could sleep much at that rate. I still woke up way early looking around the hotel for anyone else who was up early.


Saturday was a much calmer time.
I babysat for a little while, while more pics were taken


Then off to the big GTG picnic
,,,hey! I've posted their picture on my blog before:

I was excited to go to the picnic (even if I was a bit late) because I knew a few people were bringing their family there, and they wouldn't be at the hotel-other mini gtgs

It rained a little

and the girls played in the rain (Tiffers is a awesome photographer)
...and they were so cute I needed to check on Rory.
I missed her :(

the rain brought us an EPIC rainbow:



I was attempting to set the record for weirdest faces made in pictures. I think I nailed it.
(that chick was awesome too :) )

The whole picnic crew- during a speech Mimi made..


(actually more people came later, and some missed it all together.)
I think at best count WITH friends and family there were upwards of 40 people out in STL for the gtg, each more amazing and interesting ,and more hilarious than the next.
I wish i could write down something awesome about each of the people I met, I have a story, or a joke or a something for each and everyone.. but it is probably best not to share them all here anyway.


With all that kiddie family fun time (that my kid wasn't even around for me to enjoy) it was time to get back to kid free party time.

DUCKFACE
Is that not the worst picture of me ever,,, and I was still on coffee , completely sober. I have no explanation.

We planned to go on a big pub crawl.. but just ended up going back to the same bar we'd went to the night before lol .

I LOVE this pic :

She (the chick in the back next to me) was at least taller than me LOL .
She was also super awesome to hang out with and talk to, and was nice enough to help me babysit , and bring her kid to hangout. and her son is a month older than Rory, and sounded /acted so much like her ... I needed to text and check on her,again lol .
..but she looked so much like Amanda Palmer I kept wanting to interrupt her and ask her what it is like to be married to my favorite author. I didn't even get her autograph.

I look weird in all the bar pics

love her too-





So this guy walks up to us in the club over the bar, and asks "what our deal is" when we start flashing wedding rings.
That's the deal.sorry.
Then he says to me " I know your deal,weed"
... really, no no it isn't
apparently, in "Misery" it is really foreign to have dreads and not be a drug dealer. Because I got that a lot.Sorry to disappoint so many.

-- and yeah, She is WAY awesome. I'm sure you could tell .



So , after the bar/club thingy-
Ran in to tata and decided to ride with her , instead of taking the shuttle (which I was sure was just taking them all back to the hotel to bed)
Instead I ended up behind the hotel chatting people up

Hey , it's me and Tiffers
hanging out out back with these people


.. but Hamm& Jen made a pit stop at the casino.
Super jealous I didn't go with them, especially when Hamm was only there all of 5 minutes and won 1000 dollars!!


I stayed up giggling in another girls room for awhile, like kids at a slumber party.


Hamm & Jenn (whose room I was staying in) had headed up to bed awhile before me..
so when one of the girls asked me for a tampon
, and I came into these loud guys from Boston INSTEAD Of my sleeping bunkmates I was pretty shockedSo either, they overheard our room number or SOMEONE (-cough-ham ) was drunk enough to give it out.The three women who had followed me in search of tampons were all laughing hysterically.The guys buddy came to our room to gather their drunk butts up
- but he hung out for a little bit, just long enough for the 6 of us to mock and insult them , he was a nice guy like that.

I hung out with these girls a bit-but was too busy chatting and bsing , and was disappointed I didn't have more pictures with them: so I crashed their room 1st thing on my last day there to make sure to get a pic.


Tiffers made us meet up before leaving to get some pictures.

Boston dudes even came down - terrible hungover - to say bye.


Oh the view from down there looking up made me sick dizzy
I usually don't get weird about heights or anything, but that 12 story up opening made me spinny.

(we were printing our boarding passes)..it was weird being back there-we kept asking "Are you sure, we go behind the desk?"

These pics are my fav. These chicks are awesome!



LOVe love love love.. and i wish this picture had a few other people in it.
So many stories to tell, that you had to be there for, so much silliness and craziness.
It was so weird to do something on my own for me, I haven't done that in years, if ever.

I had a blast. I laughed till I cried.
I never puked.
I got hit on.
I saw crazy things,
I picked up a few accents
- smoked to much - drank too much, screamed, laughed and carried on until I lost my voice completely-
I learned some things,
and I got to meet some awesome people
that had already been my friends for years.
Maybe flying a bunch of chicks to the middle of the country to meet each other from the net is weird..
but it is a really awesome sort of weird I am so thrilled to have gone to.
It was so weird to leave, it all felt sooo surreal.
There are no words.

Next time , camera crew.


but anyway.. You probably wonder what Ri and Rory were doing while I was gone.



He was texting me pictures the whole time.
Rory on the way home with an icee


He texted me that picture in the airport.. he didn't bother to text me that the van limped all the way home with fuel filter trouble until I was saftely at my destination, he didn't want to worry me..
their long ride home ended up twice as long, and he spent the next day fixing it.

His buddies came over .- He sent me these pics

and told me another of his freinds/coworker also came over with his daughter who is Rory's age, they played and had makeovers.

He let her play wii while eating dinner


He tried to fix her schedule , with very little luck
His sis came over and she got to play with Lily

and Saturday night they sent me goodnight videos, that damn near broke my heart. I was soo ready to come home Sunday.

-- thank goodness for tequila in the terminal at the airport with Hamm
being tipsy made my joke of "low-fare pretzels" less stingy as my knee pressed into the guy in front of me
Least the sunset was awesome

..and I FINALLY made it home
I so missed my people, and my dog.
it was pathetic. I was gone the perfect amount of time, I think longer would've been too much time away from them.

We still went to Wednesday at the pier.

So great to watch the kids run and play- even if there seemed to be a bit more unsupervised children, and hoodlums out celebrating the last Wednesday before school.

-- Friday was the big day to meet Rory's teacher. She is in one of the larger classes so she has TWO teachers... and Rosie,Steven and Sid aren't in her class.
Rosie was quite heartbroken by it- but Rory took it better than I thought she would. She says she will get to see Rosie other times, and says it is ok.. plus, she is excited to get to make new friends. A few kids from her old class ARE going to be in her 1st grade so she is ok with that.
I don't know whose kid she is.. I would have broke down like Rosie did , no doubt.Heck, if Rory wouldn't have been so cool about it I would've cried right there with her, lol.
She was SO sweet meeting her teachers, and she walked right up to some other girls playing and asked if they would color with her, and be her friend. The teachers ooed and awwed over how sweet and brave it was.

Today we got more of the ever growing school supply list shopping doom done. The kid is bringing TWO bags of misc. supplies along with her backpack full of regular school stuff. I am not even sure how we are going to transport it all. lol.

I should REALLY go now though. In just a few hours i have to wake her for school.
I am soo not ready, it snuck up on me so horribly. I can't even believe it.
I think I might go cry.Or go into some late night prep frenzy.
Start making some big lists.
1st grade.
ugh.

Well, I'll HAVE TO be back on here really soon with pictures of that. Sorry I delayed this post so long,,
and that it is, sort of, all over the place.
The picture are awesome though, right?

PEACE AND TOFU CHICKEN GREASE,
BABYHELLFIRE