Last night was A-MAZING!

How many times have you heard THAT? Or wish you did??
I've been hearing it over and over and over again today. No joke...dozens and dozens of times.
What was so special about last night?

The better question is...What wasn't?

Last night, Thanks to Marketing and Planning Extraordinaire Missy from The Marketing Mama, 40 'local' Minnesota Bloggers got together for what can only be called an AMAZING NIGHT!

We started off with mingling and dining at Houlihans - It was fantastic -

But even more fantastic...the people. The forty local bloggers. Forty different walks of life.
Converging on one space...for a common cause...
Just who are these forty different bloggers?

You can see the official attendee list here - go ahead - check them out - you won't regret it!
There are some AMAZING folks among us!

It's so funny, driving over to the restaurant I didn't even have a single pang of nervousness. I think being friends with Matt Logelin will do that to a person - I have met some AMAZING people via Matt and his awesome foundation - the Liz Logelin Foundation.

I just knew this would be the same sort of thing...
Besides, after chatting via Twitter and Facebook and reading many of these bloggers ahead of time...it felt like we were old friends already, even though most of us had never met in person!

Kellyn of Fritz Factz -

& Kim from I want a minivan (with me) ~

Missy talking with Norman ~ 1 of the 2 brave men who joined in our festivities!

Liz and Carrie - Carrie designs blog books - something that I am currently doing for myself...hmmmm...so tempting to have her do it for me -

And oh, Trish...She is sooo sweet...and you really must go and read HER blog post about this amazing event...it gave me goose bumps to read her entry and her pictures...this is one talented woman!

Jen of Prior Fat Girl - who incidentally has one of the most. remarkable. stories. EVER! showing off the swag that was provided us courtesy of Red Gold Tomatoes and Annie's Homegrown -

Suzi from Pink Vanilla Cupcakes, Kellyn of Fritz Factz, Julie of Varitable Fount & Elizabeth from Hazelden's Recovery Blog

From there we headed over to Feed My Starving Children in Eagan to help package food for the hungry. More specifically, on this night, for Haiti. (Please remember my friend Joanna who is currently serving on a mission trip in Haiti & if you are so inclined, say a prayer for her and those whom she is helping!)

We listened to Adam talk about Omar...and how Feed My Starving Children has saved his life.

Amazing facts...for just .17 you can feed a child a meal. What else can a person get for .17?

Certainly not much.

This is one place your money really goes far.

We were determined to get to work...We got our instructions...They turned up the music...and we got busy...we scooped, we sealed, we boxed. We talked. We sang. We danced. All while making a difference for someone else.
Actually, on this particular night, for 38 someone elses. Together, along with a bunch of other fantastic volunteers, we packaged 64 boxes of food during our 'shift'. Enough food to feed 38 children for an entire year. Read Trish's post to see just exactly what that means...

I know for me, when my friend Joanna posted on her Facebook page just hours before we were going to head out to Feed My Starving Children - it really helped to make an impact on my heart knowing what my evening had in store - Joanna wrote from Haiti ~

We are just getting a meal ready for our overnight patients at our "clinic" we are making the FMSC food. It is so great to have this to feed them. All of my friends that are packing this week, keep up the great work. You are saving lives. Loving you all from Haiti.

Beth hard at work -

{And here's a funny story about Beth here...And I hope I don't offend her...but I'm so embarrassed I could just...oh I don' t know. So I was pretty excited to meet all of these folks, many of these bloggers who, as I mentioned...have felt like they were my girlfriends for ages...One of them...being Beth. Beth of Anti-Supermom. Not Beth of Beth Blair. And while I'm sure that the latter of the two Beths could become a good friend of mine too...She and I haven't emailed back and forth, commented on each others blogs, and so on and so forth. No wonder she didn't hug me when I was all like - BETH! HELLO! It's MEEEEEE! We talk via email of what to do with all those novelty pencils our kids get & where to host a birthday party for kids...
**cough** oops.
I was thinking...well, you don't look EXACTLY like your pictures...but you do have dark hair...
Damn name tags...it's hard to read them without staring at people's breasts ya know???
Seriously...so embarrassing.
Thanks to Jen at Recovering Procrastinator for pointing this out to me and telling me I had my links mislabeled! Ugh. I might never have known!}

Ok...back to the night...
Kim and I said when this thing was scheduled that we'd sport hair nets together - and we did!

And then we posed with Kay from Cribsheet - Cribsheet is what connected me to many, many bloggers in the first place!

May and Kay of Cribsheet -

And then I took a snapshot (thanks Missy!) with one of my other favorite Star Tribune writers...Kara from Kablog!

Jen from Recovering Procrastinator

Me and Liz from Random Thoughts from a Luthern Geek

There were soo many amazing people here tonight - I'd love to link up every single person and I'm sorry for those of you I'm not - but please please please use the MckLinky at the end of this post and put YOUR blog post about last night in so everyone can read YOUR stories, your words as well!

Trish has connections (HA HA!) and Fox 9 came out - I'm told there was a snippet on the 10pm news but I wasn't home in time to see it -

Thanks again Missy for organizing an AMAZING event! A-MAZING!



The whole group. The whole AMAZING group. I am so honored to have been a part of this event...and I look forward to new found friendships...including playdates with our kids and GASP...CHILDCARE SWAP! YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!

For a slide show of pictures from last night...click this link...I think...

Did you join us last night and blog about it today? Please link up your post so that people can read about YOUR amazing night last night!