Sleeping Bag: Check
Healthy Snacks: Check
Awesome Bunk-mates: Check
Campfire: Check
Flashlight: Check
Giggles, Chuckles & Sarcasm: Check
Fresh Mountain Air: Check
Bears, Mountain Lions & Mosquitos: NO thank Goodness
Leaving kids at home with Daddy: PRICELESS
and so starts the weekend spent at the first ever Camp Blogaway in the beautiful San Bernardino mountains in Southern California. Â What a weekend it was. Â Simply fabulous. Â It was created by our fearless leader Patti Londre. I think from the sound of things this might become a yearly event. Â From the moment we arrived Friday afternoon we were entertained with workshops, seminars, social networking, s’mores and laughter.
We learned a ton (and went neck to neck) with PR folks.  We built silly frosted cakes as an “ice breaker” activity.  We enjoyed a camera seminar by Art Ramirez.  We learned from one of the best food stylists Denise Vivaldo.  Danny Jauregui of Food Bloggers Unite gave a wonderful SEO presentation.  Patti gave a great talk on running our blogs like true businesses.  We learned recipe writing from Barbara Gibbs Ostmann, who co-authored The Recipe Writer’s Handbook. For more on the great line up of speakers, topics and activities please click HERE.
It was wonderful to make new friends and see old ones. Â Funny how “old” friends are people I have known under a year. Â Our relationships get stronger each time we see each other, even when we have face time just once or a few times a year. Â Our time spent online, checking out each others blogs, stumbling, tweeting and cheering each other on is a friendship promise I will treasure and keep.
I had so much fun with my bunkmates, Rachael: La Fuji Mama and Kate: Savour-Fare
I loved catching up with my pals Anne-Marie: This Mama Cooks, Erika: In Erika’s Kitchen, Josie: Daydreamer Desserts, Diane: Created by Diane, Cristina: Teenie Cakes
Awesome to meet some great new friends in person, Robyn Webb, Greg: Sippity Sup, Pamela: My Mans Belly, Casey: Tastestopping, Vanessa: Chef Druck, Laura: Dove Concepts and the lovely massage therapist Dawn.
I had a chance to connect with most of the campers, and enjoyed all of our conversations. Â For a full list of the dynamic group click HERE.
Guess what? Â I won a very neat award.
Don’t forget to enter my Easy LunchBox giveawayContest closes this Saturday, May 22nd.
Have a great time there!
Cheers,
Rosa
It looks like it was so much fun! I think I need to make this a priority the next time around. 🙂
What a fun weekend away! I love the marshmallows for your little campers — you’re such a sweet mama! Congrats on your athletic award!
This sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun! SO many of my favorite people all in one place!
This sounds like so much fun! I love camping, and have always wanted to participate in a blogger meet-up. Yay for the athlete award! It’s great you fit in all that fitness with those adorable kids of yours!
Had a great time @ Camp Blogaway, I’m so glad we were able to connect this weekend. You have a new Family Fresh Cooking fan! 🙂
Marla, you were definitely a BIG influence on our camp weekend. This post is fan-tab-ulous, good job camper!
Wow, it looks like you had a fabulous time! What a great way for foodies to get together and share their love for food!
I’m so glad we got to hang out at Camp – next year you have to teach me to do pushups (I hear you’re the pushup queen!).
I hope to go to something like this in the future. Looks like TONS of fun!
Marla! What fun, what wonderful fun! I need to be living in a more densely populated area. There are just not enough of us up here to do this… or are there? Hmmmm…
I loved seeing your snacks. I would have been very surprised if you had dived in to all of that junk food in the first couple of shots.
Thank you so much for sharing!
PS – how much lead time did you have on this. When did everyone find out about it? I may do something like this here…
Cheers,
Valerie
barney butter! hooray! this looks like a really, honest-to-goodness fun time. 🙂
What a fantastic recap of the weekend. Glad to be one of your pals! Learned lots and have great memories 🙂
So glad you had a great weekend! Looking forward to seeing you soon 🙂
Such a fun weekend! I’m bummed I felt bad, and I think we should totally do it again, only without the camping part!
I was having a hard time breathing up there and you were working out!! =)
Great recap of a very educational and productive weekend, Marla. It was great to see you at Camp and I appreciated your questions during the PR Panel discussions. You put me to shame bringing up your own healthy meals.
I wanna hear about the Blogher Food Conference since you scored with a valuable ticket! Keep in touch!
What a terrific way to recap a terrific weekend. Meeting you was one of the highlights for me. GREG
Here via Greg’s tweet. You campers make me so envious!
Glad ya’ll had such a great time.
sounds like you had a great time..love all the pics..congrats on your award..
sweetlife
Camp Blogaway — and YOU — were rockin’ good fun!