Two weeks ago, I got to mark something off my bucket-list.

I got to attend a food blogger conference!

I got to attend BlogherFood16 in Austin, Texas.

It also happened to be our anniversary weekend. We’ve been married 8 years. WHOA!

Yea…it was a pretty epic weekend for us.

We made some fast friends while I was there; the kind that I think we will keep. Everyone was so nice!

Before heading to the conference, I did my research.

What should I wear? What should I take? What should I expect?

(Good thing I’m a crossfitter. I had to load all the stuff into the car, by myself this time.)

I planned with a lot of anxiety and arrived with a lot of peace. It really was a wonderful experience.

Some highlights:

• I got to meet Aarti Sequeira and her husband, Brendan McNamera.

They are pretty amazing people. The Mister and I attended a session on podcasts that they paneled. The Mister is REALLY excited about podcasting, and since we’ve been back home, he and a friend have been working to get one up and running. Who knows, there may be one up and running soon that involves us both. 

• We got to meet Carla Hall – Hootie Hoo!

• We made some sweet friends.

The first friend we made was Christina, from Confessions of a Flawed Human. We didn’t get a picture with her, nor did I get to tell her that meeting her set the tone for the entire conference for us. She was just so nice! Christina, thanks for being so sweet.

We met Paula from The Sweet Almond Blog, and we kept bumping into each other; so we did a lot of sitting together and even hung out at the closing party. Paula, those arepas are on my list of things to try making next week!

Winter, from Hungry Squared, became a fast friend to both the Mister and I. She was the mic wrangler at the podcast session we went to, and we immediately fell in love with her! We started listening to her podcast while we were at the conference and she and her friend, Sharon, are really funny!

Catherine, from The Gluttonous Geek, was the cutest. She always had something interesting to say and, she was the brave gal who asked Freddie Prinze Jr. to please, PLEASE write a cookbook for gamers and geeks.

I also got to meet Kevin, from Closet Cooking. I have been following his food blog since before I even had a food blog. It was a little awkward at first, but he was super nice!  

Isabelle, from Crumb: A Food Blog, kept me laughing while we were out and about. She invited us to this really awesome place called Easy Tiger after the closing party. I will forever love her for that invitation! If you’re ever in Austin, go there and order the Pastrami, and take home some sourdough bread.

Arushi was one of the last friends we made, and I only got to have dinner with her on Saturday, but I fell in love with her, too! 

At the end of our Saturday evening, I decided that I wanted to bring them all home with me. Food blogger friends, I hope to one day connect with you again in person. Until then, we have the inter-webs.

• The closing note of the conference included Carla Hall, Lisa Lillien (a.k.a. The Hungry Girl), and Freddie Prinze Jr. It was awesome!

I’m excited to purchase his cookbook, Back To The Kitchen.

• After the conference on Saturday, we attended Austin City Limits, but that will get it’s own post in a few days!

The experience at BlogHerFood 2016 was amazing. I am so grateful for the people who put it together, and for those who spoke and taught me so much! I learned a lot of new things, and I made some great connections. I was also really inspired to do MORE with my blog.

Friends, visit all those blogs that are linked above, and subscribe to their email newsletters and podcasts. I promise that you won’t be disappointed with any of them. Food Bloggers work hard to put content out so that you have something tasty to make and read and get ideas from. Read food blogs, leave comments on food blogs, try the recipes and tell food bloggers what you think. You have no idea how much it encourages and inspires us.

Love you all!

~Mrs Galvan~