Fun Times at ALA Midwinter 2012

Amy and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Dallas Texas this year.  Amy's parents live in the area, so we flew in and stayed with them.  We got in at 11:30 pm on Wednesday night and Amy's mom had made us fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy!  YUM!  That was the beginning of my Texas eating frenzy!  We at at SO many good restaurants.  One day we even had two lunches.....don't judge!

ALA opened Friday afternoon, and we were there when the gun blasted doors opened!

 My first look at Dallas!

At ALA! (We take a pic of our parking spot so we don't get lost)  It only took us 10-11 tries to line up the sign while remembering to actually look at the camera.

 I'm official!

 At a Book Blogger dinner with tons of different Bloggers and Authors. This is Katie from Mundie Moms, Amy, Andye, Yara from Once Upon a Twilight, and Nancy from Girls in the Stacks.  We may or may not have been acting like 12-year-olds before this very proper picture. :P  Thanks to Jen Bigheart for putting this together!

Also at the Blogger dinner, we finally met HD from Reading Writing Breathing!  He was super, super sweet, even if he did cut in front of me and has crazy-strange taste in books!! (I'll never let you live it down!!! mwahaha!!)

 After our first night at ALA, here's what we came home with.  This was just day one!  Lots of Young Adult books and Middle Grade books (for Reading Tween). 

I made a new friend!  YAY me!  This is Sabrina from YA Bliss.  We hung out and talked about audiobooks a lot!!  I learned NEVER to hand her a Paranormal Romance and she hates spicy food! :P  Also, she's a total sweetheart!

We went out to this great Tavern for lunch with Sabrina, Trini (A Book-Lovers' Review), and Yara.  Had a great time getting to know them better, plus it was nice to get out of the convention center for awhile!

 My girls! Yara, Gabrielle from Mod Podge, Sabrina, Me and Melina from Reading Vacation!  Love these girls!

John Green (The Fault in Our Stars) was there and spoke and signed books.  I didn't get a picture with him, but I did even better.  I got one with his awesome van!  haha

Saturday night we stopped by (Girls in the Stacks) Stacy's house, who lives very close to Amy's parents, and hung out with Stacy & Nancy (GITS), Jen (A Book and a Latte), Kelsey (Reading or Breathing), and Katie (Mundie Moms).  Katie's the only one who would take a picture. :P

This was BY FAR my most anticipated book of the conference.  Apparently it was everyone else's too because the giveaway started at 3:00pm and people started lining up at 10:30am!  I'm so excited for this book, I've been waiting for YEARS!!  (With Gabrielle, Sabrina, me and Kelsey)

This was the last day at ALA.  All the booths are packing up and giving/selling all their stuff.  This was us (Andye, Katie, Uh...awkward...don't remember, HD) waiting at the S&S booth.  They were AWESOME, so friendly and organized!!  They gave away all their books, finished and ARCs.  We got to just stroll through and pick out whatever looked awesome!  I got finished copies of Blood Red Road, This Dark Endeavor, Moonglass, Stay, and a bunch more!

We had SO MUCH FUN!  I'm sad I didn't get pictures with everyone, including Hafsah (Icey Books) and her amazing sister, Asma, and Trinity Faegan (The Mephisto Covenant), who is the sweetest person ever, and Sophie Jordan (Firelight), who may tie for the sweetest person, and also Alex Bracken (Brightly Woven)....so that's a three-way tie!  They were all so nice!  Thanks to all the amazing publishers who were so gracious, and to all the blogger who were so friendly.  We were so thrilled to meet new people, see those we've been chatting with for so long, and reconnect with our old friends.  We can't wait to do it again!  If you'd like to see more ALA pics, you can check them out here!