BlogHer ’12, Part 3!

Day three was easily the least busy day for me (but probably the most fun). By now I had already gotten my sea legs, and wasn’t wandering around like a chicken without its head. I ended up getting to the Hilton later than I had hoped for (again). Traveling to and from BlogHer is an event in and of itself, so if you can afford to stay on location or relatively close to it – then do it! Because you will probably save yourself a lot of pain and frustration. Anyways, on day three, I actually ended up bringing my sister along to help me carry things.

First thing I did was head to the expo hall. Passing by the giant Lorax taking pictures outside the entrance, I spent a good fifteen minutes looking for Cinny (my friend, who I met up with and bumped into a few times at blogher) and sampling breakfast items. There were so many great booths that despite it being my third day at BlogHer, I had yet to visit them. I had a blast chatting up the Dole reps and sipping their amazing shakes (seriously, if you haven’t tried them yet then do!)- they gave out the cutest banana shaped USB’s! And Hillshire Farm and Jimmy Dean deserve special thanks for keeping me and so many other bloggers fueled throughout BlogHer- they had an amazing set up, and their booth even had a station where you could have your own custom dish cooked right in front of you! It was so delicious!

One of my most favorite booths out of my whole entire BlogHer experience was Michael Angelo’s frozen Italian cuisine booth. Not only did I get to try some of their delicious eggplant parm (which I am a massive fan of), but I also met the founder Sara Agnello. She was SO incredibly nice, but then we got into talking about Italian gravy (sometimes called Sunday Sauce) and I knew I had met a kindred spirit. She told me that her family were formerly East Coast Italians, and that they moved to California to start the Michael Angelo’s business of sharing great homestyle Italian eats with their customers. As a girl with Italian in her veins, and a million memories of my moms Italian cookin’, I can honestly tell you that their parm is the real deal!

After Michael Angelo’s, I visited with Nina – the super friendly Zamzee rep. She was great, and let me in on all the great features and benefits of Zamzee – not sure what Zamzee is? Stay tuned, you’ll hear all about it here on The NYC Talon soon!

After that me and Cinny headed to the Getting Gorgeous event- hosted by Audrey McClelland and Vera Sweeney. I didn’t get to meet Audrey at the event, but I met Vera (whose tweets I follow- she totally has the scoop on what to expect at CVS this upcoming season, can you say white chocolate candy corn?!) and she is the nicest person ever! Despite being surrounded by hundred of bloggers, and top brands, she stopped to have a chat with me and Cinny about brands, CVS, and blogging.

The event was amazing- I really had a great time talking to brands, sipping diet Pepsi, grabbing box tops for schools in the Hanes booth, chatting with Underbrella (love their products now), taking photos in Downy’s decked out photobooth, trying out Coldwater Creeks jeans (which I’ll be getting a pair of – thanks Coldwater Creek!), talking with the super-friendly Zarbee’s reps, admiring momagenda’s agenda’s, and oh yeah- winning a giftcard by tweeting @dietpepsi #fizz!

It was an insanely fun event, and I had a blast. Here’s a picture from the fragrance consultation I had with one of the many CVS reps:

Afterwards, me and Cinny headed back to the Hilton where there was about 2 hours left at the expo. Many of the brands were packing up, and me and Cinny went our seperate ways.
Somewhere between talking, handing out cards, and tweeting – I had received a reply from one of my tweets from SodaStream to stop by their booth. So I did. And I totally won a SodaStream of my own! Woohoo! I was completely shocked and thrilled all at once. The reps at the booth were SO sweet, handed me a SodaStream, a couple extra bottles, and sent me on my way. Best. Win. Ever!

Now, a lot of people kvetch about having swag thrown at them (although why you would complain about getting swag thrown at you is beyond me) – I never had this experience. In fact, most of the reps I met were completely professional (except for the rep at the minute clinic who was totally rude, apparently, to a lot of bloggers). All-in-all BlogHer was great, the location was excellent, the staff were helpful, finding my way around was easy, the expo was brilliant, and the reps and bloggers I met were amazing. What more could I ask for?

After a short visit to the swag exchange, which was virtually empty – except for the blue boa that I ended up snagging for my sister, and the Perplexus Sphere (which I wrote about in my August fav’s), my sister and I headed home.

Special thanks to Hillshire Farm, Johnsonville, Broadway Nails, Zamzee, Sara Agnello and Micael Angelo’s, Rickland Orchards, Hot Pockets, Coffee-mate, Zondervan, Wholly Guacamole, Kozy Shack, Crest, Centrum, Chap-stick, Land o’ Lakes, Staples & Martha Stewart, Dole, McDonald’s, Love with Food, Gorton’s Seafood, Danon, Bailey’s, Tria, Egglands Best, Coffee-mate, Lifeproof, Udi’s Gluten Free, Weleda, Clorox, 6pm, Johnson & Johnson, and all the other amazing sponsors that showed up to support and connect with the blogging community at BlogHer 2012!

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