The Sony Mommy Blogger Event – Recap!

I’ve been meaning for an entire week now to sit down and write about The Sony Mommy Blogger Event. I know how I am, though, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to write about it without going on for days, so I had to sort of brace myself for it. Okay, here goes! What a whirlwind trip it was! I flew out to gorgeous, sunny LaJolla, California last Wednesday along with lots of other Mommy Bloggers®. When Paul took me to the airport, it was SNOWING, so I was pretty pleased to be heading out of Colorado into the land of sunshine. Anne Marie from My Readable Feast was on my flight with me, and she and I shared a limo to the hotel as well. I have to admit that I was a giant baby when I discovered that our limo driver was holding a sign with her name on it, but not my name. Ha! AND! We both had a suitcase and a carry-on. The driver grabbed her suitcase and her carry-on, and I schlepped my own stuff to the limo. The hell? Whatever, though.

When we got to La Valencia, the bellhop took my bags up to my room after I checked in, and…holy cats. This room! It was just amazing. And honestly? It wasn’t all that amazing, compared to some of the other rooms. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my room was sort of closet-like in comparison to the multi-room suites with spalike bathrooms that some of the other ladies had. But I didn’t even care – it could have been a room at the Super 8, and it would have been just dandy, because I was GLORIOUSLY ALONE, in a gorgeous place, with no small children hanging off of me!

My room really was quite stunning, I have to say – big cushy bed, ginormous TV, ocean view…it was just perfect. And when we arrived, each of us had a little rose waiting for us, along with fancy chocolates. I felt like I was on The Bachelor. And once I tapped into the free wi-fi, I was good to go. I chilled in my room for a little while, watching some quality television, before heading down to the fitness room for a massage. I hate to sound like a broken record here, but it was pretty damned fantastic. It was the most relaxing hour and fifteen minutes I’ve spent in…probably years. When I walked out of there, I had massage oil all slicked through my hair so I looked like the Heat Miser, but I didn’t even care. I headed back to my room, ordered dinner from room service, and hung out waiting for my favorite Julie to arrive!

Seeing Julie was one of the best parts about the trip, even though our visit was way too brief. She had a memorial service to attend that evening () but she still managed to come down from San Diego (or is it up? I have no idea) and spend a little time visiting. We walked around the shops nearby, got a gelato, and then just hung out, looking at pictures of my kids and pictures of sets she’s designed for the theater company she works for. Our lives are so very different! I just love that girl, though. Julie! Denver misses you. Feel free to move back at any time. I had to eventually kick her out, though, because I was about to fall asleep in her lap. And after she left, I had the best night sleep I’ve had in a long time! I heard from so many other women there that the beds were just ridiculously comfortable. And I can confirm that this is indeed the case! I slept great, even though I was excited and even a little nervous about the events that awaited us!

Thursday morning, I woke up bright and early since I was on Colorado time, and I made sure to take a picture of the gorgeous view, since it looked completely different at that time of day. I headed down to the meeting room to meet up with everyone, and I actually got butterflies when I saw what was waiting for us: in front of every seat around the table, there was a stack of Sony boxes, containing three amazing cameras. We were all a little giddy while enjoying our breakfast, and damn – did I mention that breakfast buffet? I don’t know what it is about eating a meal that you didn’t have to cook, on a dish that you won’t have to wash – but under those circumstances, bacon and scrambled eggs taste better than they EVER have.

So after we all grubbed, we got set up and figured out how to plug fifteen laptops into two outlets. I’m amazed we didn’t, I dunno, trip a breaker or something? It seemed to work fine, though! We all introduced ourselves, met the Sony folks, and then it was time to check out the goodies! The first camera was the Sony Cybershot in a really cute blue color. It actually comes in pink, blue, green, black, and, I think, silver – but I like the blue best! The second camera was the completely kickass Sony Alpha DSLR-A300. Never in a bazillion years would I have imagined myself owning a camera like this, so I freaked out a little on the inside. Kept my cool, though! The third camera was the one Paul immediately snatched from me and I haven’t seen it since: the Sony Handycam, a high definition camcorder with a 40 gig hard drive. You can even snap 4 megapixel digital stills with it. It’s pretty dang cool. I’m telling you, it was like seeing a bunch of little kids on Christmas morning.

After we opened up the cameras and freaked out and screamed like little girls, we all broke out into small groups with people from Sony who helped us learn how to use our new cameras. The cybershot has this crazy Face Detection technology and Smile Shutter mode that makes a little box around the head of every person in your photo. The camera sees a face and then focuses on the face instead of the background. And with the Smile Shutter thing, you can set the camera to only take a picture when it sees someone smile. It knows when you’re smiling. It’s really cool, and a little creepy! I think most of us probably have a ton of pictures of really goofy smiling faces, because we just couldn’t stop playing with this feature. All the cameras do really super special cool things, and I’ll be reviewing them one by one when I have a chance to use them more, but for now, just know that they’re all wonderful cameras and I’m thrilled that they’re miiiiine, all mine!

We had a great discussion with the Sony people about making their products appeal to women for reasons besides the fact that their camera comes in four colors. They really want to be able to market toward women and make them understand their electronics, cameras in particular, because we’re sort of the ones taking all the pictures on the sidelines and in the backyard and at the zoo and all of that. They want to make their stuff easy for women to figure out without being condescending. It’s very cool.

After we hurt our brains learning everything we could about all our fancypants cameras, we were introduced to Award Winning Photographer, Me Ra Koh. I hesitate to use the word “amazing” again, since I’ve already said it 86 times, but, for real…this lady is just phenomenal. I was sort of intimidated about the idea of meeting her after seeing her website, but she is so sweet and funny and makes you immediately feel like you’re her brand new best friend. And her story is so touching – be sure to check out the About Page on her blog. I sat next to her during lunch, and it was fun getting to talk to her one on one for a little while. And she has this deliciously LOUD, infectious laugh, too. She was so inspiring and so fun to be around I just love her. And lunch was great, too! We ate at this beautiful courtyard. Gosh, it was pretty. Lots of people get married at this hotel because it’s just so beautiful – the view, of course, along with all the lush greenery and blooming flowers. It was just so colorful and bright everywhere you looked.

We all headed down to the beach to take some pictures and learn more about our cameras. Sony provided us with a variety of super fancy lenses, the likes of which my camera will probably never see again. It was with that lens that I was able to take this picture, from reeeeeeeally far away. I kind of like the contrast there, between “hot” and “not.” Hehe! I didn’t get many good pictures on the beach, because I really just couldn’t figure out how the hell to set my F-stop with that crazy lens. The Sony people couldn’t, either. Weird! So we just headed back up to the street and took pictures of Janice’s adorable baby daughter Olivia. And Janice! Oh, boy. I could go on for an entire post about her alone. She is hysterical. She kind of never stops talking, which is awesome, because she is really witty and funny, and she’s always asking questions that I probably would be too self conscious to ask, because I’m a giant dork like that, but which I really needed to know the answers to. I sat down at dinner with her and asked her everything about her life, because I’m just fascinated, as a mother of twins, to know that she and her identical twin sister absolutely adore each other, and their mother too, and that they all work together. I love hearing stories like that!

Speaking of dinner, it was spectacular too. After our entire day of workshops, we all went to dinner with the Sony people at Azul Restaurant. The view was gorgeous, the food was so good I heard people making orgasm sounds while they were eating, and we drank lots of wine. Here’s a picture of the group, which I stole from Domestic Diva’s Flickrstream. I saw that I was in it, so I snatched it right up! I had to leave the restaurant at about 10:30 or so, while most everyone was still there. I was about to fall asleep in my lobster risotto! So I headed back to the hotel to enjoy my last night in pampered luxury, before returning home to the Casa de Chaos. I almost didn’t want to go to sleep, even though I was SO tired – it was just so foreign to be lying in a huge, cozy bed, surfing wirelessly, and watching a ridiculously large TV. I liked it! But…eventually exhaustion won out.

Friday morning, we all headed back down to our meeting area and had a great discussion with the folks from Rocket XL, the marketing firm that brought us together with Sony. We got a few more goodies, packed up, and … that was pretty much that. We said goodbyes and people headed off to do their own thing. I ended up having lunch with Erika Jurney from Plain Jane Mom. She’s a lot of fun and I really enjoyed spending the afternoon with her! Actually, that was truly the only thing that sucked about the trip. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to get to know the other women, and I would have really liked that, because they were all great. I thought it was just really neat being among so many amazing blogging women. It was interesting to network and hear their ideas and stuff. I mentioned to someone that this was my very first event just for bloggers! I’ve met lots of women who I originally met online, but they’ve all been from parenting sites and stuff like that. People I talk to don’t usually “get” the whole blogging things, so being among people just like me – well, it just kicked ass. I’m dying to go to BlogHer now, but it’s probably not in the cards, financially speaking.

One more thing about Me Ra Koh – she was so patient with each of us, spending as much one-on-one time with us as she possibly could. And she was so nice and approachable, I didn’t feel like a dumbass at all, even though I pretty much WAS a total dumbass. And she was so generous, too – she gave everyone in our group a set of her DVDs, including Refuse to Say Cheese, Beyond the Green Box, and the brand new Moms Survival 101 Kit. I can’t wait to sit down and watch all of them! And! She said she’d sponsor a giveaway of her DVDs here, so look for that in the future!

It really was just such an amazing (there’s that word again!) couple of days for me. So different from my everyday life. So inspiring, being among a group of such strong, smart mommies. I feel very blessed that I was chosen to attend. I think the events that took place are really going to change my life in a lot of ways, and I’m just so thankful for the opportunity to go, and learn from everyone. I also wanted to give a shout out to all the wonderful women I met in LaJolla:

• Tracey from MamaPop.com and Sweetney.com – who has the world’s cutest haircut. God, I was jealous when I saw her perfect hair! She has the haircut I always try to get. She could pose for those haircut magazines you see at the salon.

• Kim from Life in a Shoe – she actually has more children than I do! Eight kids and one more on the way. And she’s beautiful, and calm, and if you read her blog, you’ll see that she just has it all together. My new idol.
• Deanna from Domestic Chicky and Apronista – I sat next to her, and she is so sweet. And have you seen her sites? She’s really got a talent for creating stuff.
• Erika from Plain Jane Mom – we shared a limo going back to the airport! And we had lunch together! I have a tiny girl crush on Erika. Not the “I want to drink a mojito and make out with you” crush, but the, “I want to have my shit together the way you do!” crush.
• Heather from The Domestic Diva and iDivalicious – if you read her reviews, she keeps mentioning how shy and quiet and demure she is. Well, she sort of is all those things. But she’s also really sweet and I enjoyed talking to her. We were talking about missing our kids and she started getting teary, so naturally, I started bawling as well. Also? She had a super cute, non-Mommy haircut and tiny little skulls airbrushed on her thumbnails. I want little skulls on my thumbnails!
• Cat from Hi Tech Mommy – this is going to sound horrible, but I don’t actually recall meeting her? I’m so bad with names, though, and we didn’t have nametags, so it’s possible that I’m just completely stupid. Her blog rocks, though! We’re probably best friends and I’m just too lame to realize it.
• Lisa from Lisa Reviews and My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings – I sort of felt like I already knew Lisa, even though I didn’t know her at all, because we have lots of mutual friends. I sat next to her and she is just a doll. I really enjoyed getting to know her!
• Stacey from Mom Central – yet another blog celebrity. She’s even had books published. Did I mention that I felt like a total hack among some of these gals?
• Anne Marie from A Mamas Rant, My Readable Feast, This Mama Cooks, and The Write Spot – Someone from my ‘hood! Anne Marie lives just about an hour north of me, she’s also married to a Paul, and she’s so much fun to talk to! She also has that sort of hair where you can just take a shower and show up somewhere with a wet head and your hair looks fantastic by the time it’s dry. I hate her. No, I actually love her, despite the fact that she has perfect hair and I don’t.
• Christina from Geek Girlfriends – I sat by her at dinner and she was a lot of fun. Such great women they invited to this thing!
• And then there’s ME, Laura, from LaLaGirl – Twinfinite Chaos, LaLaGirl Reviews, and Enginerd and Wife – I’m not really giving myself a shoutout or anything, but I wanted to include my blogs in case somebody comes over and copies/pastes my whole list for THEIR review. Me. Me! Love me!!
• Janice from 5 Minutes for Moms – she’s hysterically funny, and she gives away a veritable fuckton of fabulous items for moms on her blog every day.
• Jenny from Mommin it Up – this girl is just adorable – she looks like a sitcom mommy. And I loved talking to her!
• Amy from Amalah – the internet already knows how funny this chick is, and she’s the same in person. And she’s the cutest pregnant woman ever.
• Ciaran (it’s pronounced “Sharon.” No, really!) from Celebrity Baby Blog, Car and Caboodle, and Mommies With Style – I want to be this chick when I grow up. She had her precious little baby and her hubby along with her, and she just seemed to do everything with such grace – she was chatting and making jokes with strangers while nursing a child and figuring out how to use a fancy camera, and I never once saw her drop the baby or the camera or accidently say, “Fuck!” during any of it. She’s a rock star, man.

Go visit all of these women, if you aren’t already stalking them through their RSS feeds! They’re great chicks and great bloggers and I loved hanging out with them.

One last thing: my sweet husband. He felt so bad for me that my limo guy didn’t have a sign with my name on it, that he greeted me back in Denver with this:

Welcome back to the ghetto, honey!