It's all in the NUMBERS!!

2 friends

25 minutes from home

in room 235

for 43 hours

11 is the number of snacks we got at Target

3 is the number of times we left the room to eat

9 o'clock is the time we woke up both mornings

16 is the total number of hours we slept

0 is the number of showers we took

4 is the number of rooms we spent our weekend in

50 is the number of minutes blogger was down on Saturday night

1 is how many batteries we had to borrow from the hotel concierge

6 is the number of people who missed us while we were gone

54 is the number of posts we finished between us

10 is the number of pounds lighter we feel after our blogfest

2012 is the year that Blog Weekend was born

{Before Blog Weekend 2012--seeing the word draft made me cringe because that showed a post waiting to be done)

I asked BB to take some pictures while I was gone and here is what he got: Landry playing her new 3D Dora Game on her iXL, Poor Sick Ashton eating her dinner from Cane's that Daddy got her on his way home from the party, Landry opened the birthday presents Auntie Heather delivered from our Lorena family, and Landry at the birthday party full of 3 year olds--they were trying to get a group picture!

BL sent these pictures to Jodi of the cool fort/tent he made for the girls!

{These snacks were one of the new ones we tried and they were DELISH! We kept them out in the front of the car with us in case we wanted to munch on them one last time on our way home}

This is our "after" picture--I wish we had taken a "before" picture when I picked Jodi up since we were freshly showered and dressed in clothes other than sweats!

{After Blog Weekend 2012--only a few drafts left!}

Now that you have seen the fun little number facts at the top (A Big Fat Thank You to Jodi for letting me "borrow" this for my blog) and you have seen the pictures, please allow me to elaborate a little!

Let's rewind a bit for some background info...

Jodi and I both knew that we were WAY behind on our blog and neither of us liked being so far behind. Well, on NYE day I got a text from Jodi (in a panic) saying that she had just counted up how many posts she was behind on her blog and it added up to 50! I nearly fell out because the thought of counting mine scared me. Sure enough, with me having all of November and all of December, my total was thirty-something! That is quite a daunting task to know you are THAT far behind!

On numerous occasions, Jodi and I have talked about how wonderful it would be to have a weekend with no distractions to just blog! Well, after Jodi's terrifying discovery, she decided we needed to quit talking about it and do it. She didn't have to twist my arm very hard to get me on board!

We immediately started getting the details planned and her dad was sweet enough to use his Hilton Honors Points to get us a room. {Thank You Max/Paps!!} You have no idea how excited and giddy we were....even with knowing we would have to get all of our pictures loaded before we went, we were PUMPED!!

Now, lets come back to the present and you have BLOG WEEKEND 2012!! 

Those facts above are not exaggerations...I picked up Jodi on Friday evening, we got snacks at Target and dinner at Tin Star......and then we spent 43 hours locked in a hotel room a mere 25 minutes from home, we took exactly ZERO showers, stayed in our jammies or sweats the whole two days, left the room only 3 times to eat actual meals (2 breakfasts in the lobby and 1 dinner across the street), munched on mostly junk food, drank wine, laughed like crazy, and got a whopping 54 posts done between us {32 for me and 22 for Jodi}!!!  My hubs was convinced we would talk more than we would blog {we are known for some serious chit-chatting}...BUT we pulled it out!  We only ran into three issues along the way - poor Ashton had a fever and felt icky all weekend , blogger was down for almost an hour on Saturday night, and the battery in Jodi's mouse died on Sunday.  Other than that, it went smoothly!  AND...of course we did our fair share of chatting.  But we also edited each other posts and had lots of moments of quiet typing, too! 54 POSTS DONE...54 POSTS!  We were so giddy and proud of ourselves when we headed home. That is quite the accomplishment!!

I do have to say that Blog Weekend 2012 would not have happened if it weren't for our husbands! The boys were excited to have some fun quality Mommy-less time with the girls. They had their own fun things planned with the girls and they had even made plans to hang out and have dinner at our house on Saturday night. Unfortunately since Ashton got a fever it threw a kink in their plans--it really bummed BB out since he couldn't really do anything fun with the girls. Bobby wasn't scared by a fever and told me to have fun, not to worry about them, that he could handle it. He took care of a sick little girl, took Landry to a birthday party while Auntie Heather came to sit with Ashton, entertained Landry so she would stay away from the germs.  He totally rocked it! I am also proud of the girls...Ashton was a trooper and didn't whine or complain about me being gone while she was sick, and Landry was so good for her Daddy!

Bill was the dance shuttle for Macy and Carly, got new tires on his car, made a tent in the family room for Camp M&C,went to a middle school basketball game, had movie night, made dairy free cookies, and he had the girls on a bike ride when I brought Jodi home. These two dads/husbands are pretty awesome and fantastic and we are LUCKY to be married to them.  They were just as excited for us to have our weekend as we were and we wouldn't have had as good of a time if it wasn't for them!  Thanks BB and BL for holding down the fort and encouraging us to go...yall ROCK and are the BEST!!

I seriously can't believe that we accomplished so much in our weekend! We both only had a couple more posts to finish once we got home. That means that I am now in the present! I got all of November, all of December, and the first part of January DONE! Jodi is also in the present....it feels so good to be in the NOW and not have all those posts hanging over our heads. We decided that we are going to do our best to never get that far behind again. We do want to make Blog Weekend an annual event, but not to catch up!

You know you are great friends with someone when you can lock yourself in a hotel room for 2 days and enjoy every single part of it! I didn't care that she saw me after I hadn't taken a shower for 2 days. I love that we love each others' kids and husbands like they are our own family. I love that we can bounce things off of each other. I love that we never run out of things to talk about. I love our friendship and I love that we made this weekend happen. Thanks for getting this together and for being such an awesome friend!

Our first Blog Weekend was a total success and we accomplished so much! 

Now that I am caught up...there is a TON of reading material! I know the grandparents are going to love seeing what happened at the end of 2011. If you are interested in reading ALL the posts, you'll need to get your scrolling finger ready! You will also need to hit older posts to get you way back to where you left off!