PJs at TJ's Recap!

Full disclosure: I have no pictures. I did not take any, because I am terrible at remembering to take pictures, and because I only had my phone camera. Also because I was wrangling a baby all weekend.

(That last part is sort of a lie. The other ladies did a fabulous job of baby wrangling for me. Kammah, Brooke, Stephanie, Noemi, and Elise are Baby Whisperers.) (Others are too, I think at some point just about everyone there wrangled Lorelai, but they wrangled her the most.)

So! First things first, we had no diaper issues except that I think Lorelai doesn't care for the paper diapers. She cries, twists, and pushes them away when I try to get them on her. (More than she does her normal diapers, anyway. Ugh, this fighting-diaper-changes thing ends eventually, right?) But no explosions or other leaks, and I will admit that it was really nice having extra space in the diaper bag on the plane.

Now, the important things that people actually care about. Lorelai was AMAZING on the plane, both times. I could not have asked for a better-behaved plane baby.

She was also AMAZING all weekend, as was everything else about this weekend. Kelly (Temerity Jane) threw a kickass party. It was so, so awesome to meet all these wonderful internet ladies, and the only thing I can say wasn't awesome about the weekend was that it was too short. I got in late enough on Friday that Jess (my carmate) and I only had a couple hours to hang out before we had to go to the hotel to get the munchkins down (she had her adorable son Callum with her). But we had all day to hang out on Saturday (minus the hour or so I spent in the car trying to get Lorelai to nap), which was fun, and the pajama party portion of the evening was SO. FUN. OMG.

Kelly put a BED in the middle of her living room. And we all rotated who got to sit on it throughout the night, but at any given moment there were six or seven of us piled on this bed in the middle of the living room, having a good old-fashioned gabfest while Dirty Dancing and Big were on in the background, and we all ate pizza and had soda floats (root beer, cola, I had orange soda with vanilla ice cream because the orange soda was already in my cup, but in hindsight I should have finished that cup and gone for the root beer because I love root beer floats) and gorged ourselves on chips and dip and candy.

There were ... 18? ... ladies there, and it was really a perfect number. I didn't get to really talk to everyone as much as I'd have liked, but I do feel like I got lots of good talking time in with the ladies I'd really wanted to meet. Overall, everyone was pretty much how I thought they'd be, though there a few people who were much quieter in person than I'd have expected based on their Twitter activity. Not that that's a bad thing, just an observation.

And for anyone wondering, Kelly is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from reading her blog, and yes, Penny is every bit as adorable in real life as she is on the internet. (I tried to get a pic of her and Lorelai together, but neither was really cooperating, so I don't have a good one. That is the one disappointment from this weekend. Well, that and that I didn't take Kammah to feed a kangaroo.)

(I should probably explain that part. Kelly had mentioned that there is a zoo nearby where you can feed a kangaroo, and Kammah got super excited about it. And she and her boyfriend broke up last week so I told her I would take her to feed a kangaroo to cheer her up, but then we ran out of time due to baby nap schedules and such, so we didn't get to go. But one day, Kammah, I will take you to feed a kangaroo, so help me.)

In summation, it was a fantastic weekend with fantastic women. I really, really wish that they all lived closer to me. Linnea is my glitter hippie soulmate. Noemi would be down for a 12-noon wine playdate. Kammah and I have kangaroos that still need feeding. And I had really hoped to be able to have a bagel with Elise, because bagels are, you know, sort of her thing. But alas and alack, I had to leave before breakfast Sunday (and thank goodness I did, because there was something going on that closed down the major road to the airport for a chunk of time and set us back 40 minutes. That was not at all frustrating or nerve-wracking, as you can imagine.)

There is talk of PJs@TJ's 2.0 next year, and I'm seriously hoping I'm able to go because I want to see these fabulous women again. I may be pregnant and/or giving birth at that time, but as Kelly said, there are hospitals and OBs in Arizona (specifically, her hospital and her OB, and if Penny is any indication, that OB delivers damn cute babies at that hospital) so maybe I'll go anyway. Second babies aren't as exciting as first babies, right? Kevin won't care if I give birth without him. (Lies.)

I have no good way to end this. I have dragged the end of this post out just like I dragged out goodbyes on Saturday night, because how do you wrap up so much fun?

How about this: (Somehow, I think Kammah especially will appreciate that.)