Haven Conference 2012 {pictures, pictures, pictures}

I know I’m a few days late in getting my Haven Conference post up but you’ll see why at the end of the post.  Better late than never right!?  I had so much fun at the conference!!!  I will never be able to tell you all the hilarious stories and brilliant things I learned but over time I will definitely try!  This post just a glimpse of the conference and of all the fabulous people I met.  If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen a few of these pictures but there are some new ones too. 🙂

 I snapped this picture right before I went down to the meet and greet the first night.  All of the sudden I was super nervous about the fact that I knew no one and I had no idea what I was going to say to anyone.

I quickly got over that when I walked down the hall to get on the elevator and ended up chatting with John and Sherry of Young House Love!!!  I figured if they would talk to me then anyone would talk to me. 🙂  The meet & greet cocktail party was a lot of fun and I met a ton of people!  I was surprised at how sweet everyone was an I made lots of new friends that first night!

The next morning we headed down for breakfast and a message from our key note speakers, John and Sherry.  I snapped this picture because I was so excited about Oreck being one of the sponsors of the Haven Conference!  I’m sure you’ve all read my post on how much I love my new Oreck!!!

Here I am ready to meet even more new friends and learn everything I could on the first day.

John and Sherry!!! Not only did I learn a lot from them but they were so funny.  I felt like I could just sit down with them over coffee and we’d become best friends.  It just made me love and appreciate their blog even more. 🙂

Oh yeah baby.  “I like big blogs and I cannot lie…”  You know the tune… 🙂

Here’s a picture of me and my new friend Tanya, from Love of Family and Home.  Isn’t she adorable!?  And yes, her hair is just as fabulous in person as it is in all her pictures!

Okay I’m super excited to tell you about my friends Heather and Vanessa from At the Picket Fence and my new friend Kari from Thislewood Farms.  These ladies are so fabulous, I can’t even tell you! If you could see the big smile on my face as I’m typing this, you would understand!!!  I already “knew” Heather and Vanessa from the blog world but they are even more wonderful in person.  I feel like we are all long lost friends that finally got to reunite.  Okay and Kari… there are no words for how much I instantly loved this woman!  She is beyond fabulous and beyond hilarious.  I honestly haven’t laughed as hard as I did this night, in years.  I thought I was going to pass out from laughing so hard.  Literally my stomach hurt the next morning from laughing so hard.

The next day I got to meet Jamielyn from I Heart Naptime.  I was super excited to meet her because her blog was one of the first ones I ever followed. She is so sweet and so adorable.

Oh and I got to meet Ana White!!!  This was really exciting for me because I am always on her blog looking for inspiration.  My husband and I have built a lot of things from her site, including Malea’s loft bed and our coffee table.

Here’s another picture of my and my girls.  This is the “after” picture when we all have our pretty picture faces on…

…but this is what most of our pictures look like.  I couldn’t help myself Kari is so dang funny! 🙂

I had to add this picture in because I thought it was funny.  I was in a design class and I asked the designer, “I have white carpet and a white couch what would you pick as a color scheme for a room with those clean palettes?”  This are the patters and colors she showed me, they are beautiful but let me remind you what my living room looks like…

…yeah, not even close.  I’m thinking I will do a major makeover when we move next time {maybe sooner}.

Mr. Goodwill Hunting was in the class with us so Tanya and I snapped a picture with him.  He was very sweet.

I have so many more pictures to share with you because my mother-in-law and I stayed a couple extra days in Atlanta but I’m sure you’re on picture overload right now so I’ll post those later. 🙂  I am so glad that I went to the Haven Conference and I can’t wait until next years conference!!!  I’m am so thankful to the women that worked so hard to make this conference possible, ladies you did and amazing job!!!

And this is the reason I am a few days late getting this posted.  When I got home I came home to a little girl that missed me so much and desperately wanted my attention and 172 emails in my inbox!  172 emails might not seem like a lot to you but to me that’s an overwhelmingly large number!!!

More pictures and stories to come….  If you weren’t able to go to Haven this year, I highly recommend you try to go next year, it was so fun and I learned a ton!!!