fun with dad, fun with mom

This last weekend was a little unusual in that we spent it in different places.  Matt and Graham went north to Camp Verde for the father's and son's camp out.  They had a really good time.

While they were gone, I headed east to Mesa for a book signing.  And I loved every minute of it.  : )

Graham had a really nice time in the woods.  He loves nothing more than to be outside and play.  Some of the boys in the ward found a frog and wanted to show Graham.

Graham and Daddy

I, on the other hand, did not go camping.  I went to Mesa Saturday to meet the Pioneer Woman herself.  I was super excited about the book signing, and knew it would be a popular one.  I had read on her blog as as well as on Facebook that people had shown up to previous signings hours early and ended up #150 in line.  I was a little nervous about this, so I called the bookstore a few times to figure out exactly how things were going to go down on the day of the event.  The signing was from 2-5, and seating and signing line tickets were first come, first serve.  When I talked to the lady at the bookstore she mentioned that the auditorium the signing was being held in had a capacity of 1000.  Yikes.  She didn't think that many would come, but the whole thing could take hours.

Saturday morning came, and with Graham and Matt gone, I was so bored.  I was also a little worried about the line at the signing being super long so I headed to Mesa at 9.  I was originally going to leave at noon, then I thought 11 sounded better, or maybe 10?  9:30?  I packed myself a nice bag of things to do while I waited, since I went by myself (silly, I know).  : )  But I arrived at 9:45 or so, and when I saw the line of people waiting I gave an audible laugh.  There were hardly any.  I was like #9 in line.  Ha ha.  I was so worried I'd be like #200 by then.  So...I camped out.

After a while they started handing out signing line tickets.  Right before they did, though, things were getting a little tense in the line.  The ten or so of us that were super early were ready to vouch for each other if push came to shove, as people were trying to camp out closer and closer to the door, despite their arriving at 11:30.  The ladies I met in line were super friendly and we had a great time waiting outside forever.  But when they started handing out tickets, I got this beauty...

An "A" group.  Nice.  By the time the signing was about to start, the bookstore had resorted to writing letters on slips of paper and had made it clear through the alphabet.  (There were about 25 people per group.)  On a side note: the lighting in the auditorium was really bad, so these pictures are way less than flattering (like really horrible).  Taking pictures with a flash at very close proximity is never a good thing.

I had my book and my ticket...was ready to go.  

Ree did a presentation before the signing.  She's hilarious.  We had front row seats, which was great!

We got called up to meet Ree by letter, and by then the auditorium was PACKED.  Nearly 700 people showed up.  Yowsers.  These people that arrived much later than I did were going to be there all evening.

Making my way up the line (although I didn't wait for long at all, with only a handful of people in front of me.)

And I got to meet the famous Pioneer Woman!  Woot woot!  Terrible picture, I know, but I had a blast.  I'm really glad I went on such a silly solo adventure.  I was there all day.  : )  Ha ha.

But here are my books!  Aren't they pretty?  To celebrate, I thought about making PW's chocolate sheet cake I blogged about here, but I thought I'd spare myself the trouble of having to eat the whole cake on my own.  Not that I would do such a thing.... ha ha.