Friday, November 20, 2009

PIONEER WOMAN!!!



Thursday was such an exciting day! About one o'clock that afternoon 3 friends and I met up, loaded into a Jeep and headed up to Chicago. Jonna, Jennifer, Esmeralda and I are big Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) fans and we were on a mission to spend a great girls day together topped off with the PW cookbook signing.

The idea was to leave right after lunch so that we would get up there in time to do a little shopping before dinner and then head over to the book signing. Well, wouldn't you know, we ran into rush hour traffic and had to cut out all of our shopping time. Instead we headed straight to dinner...at PF Chang's! It has been so long since I have eaten there, and it was just as amazing as I remembered! I didn't get any pictures of the lettuce wraps (the love of my life) or dinner, but I did get a shot of our Great Wall of Chocolate.

Before:


After:


We all were a little loopy on great food and excitement about the book signing. So when Esmeralda pulled out a gift card, we got a little carried away. :)



After dinner we rushed over to Barnes and Noble for the book signing. When we arrived we were handed a number (263) and told that it would probably be about an hour and a half wait. They were calling numbers in small groups so that everyone else could shop or relax instead of waiting in a line all night. It was such a great system. While we were waiting and shopping in the Children's section I caught of a couple of action shots of PW's boys. They were too funny. At one point they were throwing books at each other. We saw them get in trouble horsing around on the escalators and saw a fight outside on the sidewalk. Here they are wrestling on the floor, notice the Sharpie marker in one hand. :)



Here is Marlboro Man (PW's husband) giving the boys a good talking to.



After that we ended up in the Starbucks cafe drinking yummy drinks, reading magazines, talking and laughing. The nice guy that gave us our numbers when we arrived was pretty far off when he estimated the wait time. Instead of an hour and a half, we waited almost 4 hours! We ended up being the second to last people of the night. Here is a picture of Jonna and Esmeralda as we are in line and getting close!



We all kind of felt bad being there so late. I know that PW had to be exhausted. But despite that, Ree was SO friendly and patient and made us feel like she was just as glad to see us and she was the first people of the night. The pictures I have of us during the actual signing are not that great. I handed my camera off to a really nice camera guy who unfortunately took a bunch of blurry pics.

Jennifer:

Esmeralda:


PW taking a pic of Jonna with her camera!


Me looking like a house:


And the group!


After Ree signed our books, Marlboro Man signed them as well. I have to say he was the nicest guy! He was so down to earth and joked around and talked to us like we were friends.



And to top it all off, they were giving out free t-shirts from wildolivetees.com! They are so cute!

It was such an amazing day/night! We ended up walking out the door at midnight. Only to get in the Jeep for another three hour drive. It was such a great bonding experience for the four of us. It's not often that you get to spend 14 hours uninterrupted with the girls! A big "Thank You!!!!" goes out to Sean and Curt for keeping the kids so us mommies could enjoy the evening.

Here is my booksigning booty:




Thanks to Jonna, Jennifer and Esmeralda for the great company and wonderful memories. And thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Drummond for being so gracious to us even though I know you had to be exhausted!

3 comments:

Jonna Randleman said...

I was so excited to see this post! Hey! Imagine if we all won a trip to her house and got to cook with her! I had the best time, friend!!

Anonymous said...

Awww, what a neat experience! :) I wish I could've gone too.

Unknown said...

glad you all had fun! you are looking all cute and pregnant! How are you doing? how much longer 'til the little one makes a debut?