The Blathering Recap

By Natalie

Jennie wanted me to go to the Blathering. It was only $35 and in Austin so bit the bullet and signed up. I wasn't sure what to expect. I felt pretty good knowing that I would know several people through book club, and if all else failed I could just hang on to Jennie's arm.

On Friday, I took a half day and rode down with Julie. She is my kind of driver, she never stops. That's my rule in my car, except usually Micah needs to make a stop.

We walked in to a beautifully decorated room, and we got these adorable name tags. I felt a little overwhelmed by all the eyes on me when I walked in. It was great to meet so many people....finally!

The above 2 photos were taken by Kristie 

After Jonna and I were worn out, we headed over to Natalie's house, our gracious host. Natalie's house is really awesome, and her backyard is an oasis. But, before we made it to Natalie's we had to make a pit stop at Whataburger. Jonna had never been there before!

Saturday morning, some crazy pants people went on a 6 mile run. I attempted to sleep in with little success.

Jonna and I got moving and met up with the ladies at the Gypsy Picnic. The picnic was really fun! I tried Torchy's Tacos  and a HUGE do-nut. I couldn't even finish the do-nut. I tried some waffle fries and they were sub par. They were $4 and after my astute calculations I found each fry to cost about 50 cents. NOT WORTH IT.

Jonna & Jennie

Christina chowing down!

After the picnic, we walked all the way to the capitol building for the book fair. I will take full responsibility, it was my idea to walk there. This was such a bad idea. My foot swelled up to one fat sausage. I thought I was going to have to perform surgery to get my sandal off.  The book fair was a total bust. I thought it would be this giant room of tables with books and some authors. It wasn't like that at all. In fact the most interesting that happened was we saw this total hoochie pulling a Britney Spears. Not cool. We took a cab back to Jonna's car.

Being pregnant, I was hungry. We made our way over to Home Slice. We ran into some of the Blathering gang, but they were on their way out. Linnea was just arriving so she had a slice with us at the bar. She's preggo too, and very close to my due date. That brings the total to 4 pregnant people in our book club!!! After sufficiently being stuffed we went back to Natalie's for a little lie down. I contemplated not showering, but my feet were just too black.

For dinner, the organizers planned a fabulous dinner at Z Tejas. When I pulled up, I realized that I had already been there before. I went for my friend, Brandi's bachlorette party. She's also pregnant (2 weeks behind me!).

Taken by Jess (Me, Jennie, Jess, and Kristie)

Jennie and Kate

The dinner was really delicious, although I wasn't that hungry. I enjoyed the chocolate pie best.

I looked lovingly at the margaritas too. There was queso too! At dinner I sat with Elsha, Jen, Jonna, Kate, Jennie, Kristie, and Carissa. I mingled with Sarah, Jess, Elizabeth, Christina, and Erica. I wish I had mingled a little more. I feel like there were a few people that I didn't get to talk to at all. Jonna and I were pretty tired after dinner (it ended at 11!), and went back to Natalie's to catch some z's. Jonna also had a butt crack of dawn flight.

On Sunday, we met up at the Blathering living room for the last time for breakfast. I tried to chat with a few people that I hadn't met yet. I was so happy to see that Julie was there. I forgot to arrange a meet up with her to take me back to Dallas. Oops!

This was a great girl's weekend with some very lovely people! Check out the Blathering website for much more eloquent recaps, and the Flickr group for pictures. I didn't take too many pictures!