Today's Memory Monday challenge is to write/blog/and/or scrapbook about if you have ever met someone over the internet and then met them in real life.
I guess I'm old enough that this idea still seems a little strange to me at times. When I hear of someone meeting up with a friend they made on the internet I worry about stalkers and all that kind of stuff. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that a lot of people date over the internet either - but that's a whole different subject. LOL!
I decided to get out of my comfort zone (in front of my computer) and go meet up with a bunch of friends I had only met online. In fact I actually had not even met most of them online as several of them are not active on the same sites I hang out on. As I mentioned yesterday, I went to a digital crop hosted by Designer Digitals. I also got some much needed "me time" and had a nice little mini-vacation away from my family.
It is the first time I've gone somewhere on my own overnight in about 6 years!
I checked into my room at the Marriott Courtyard hotel and when I saw those two nicely made beds in that quiet room, I was seriously tempted to just lay down and go to sleep. Forget the digital crop, I wanted a nap! But I told myself not to miss out on the opportunity so I headed downstairs to meet the gang.
I walked into the conference room and was greeted by Katie and Randy Pertiet (the owners of Designer Digitals) and they were both very nice and welcoming. I only knew one person in the entire room and she was a digi friend I had met up with a few years ago. I had only met her once but we keep in touch on facebook. We all introduced ourselves and the fun began. There were challenges every hour, lots of treats, and a ton of laptops. One scrapper even brought her full desktop computer since she didn't own a laptop.
I also got to meet some of my blog readers which was really fun. So many nice digiscrappers out there!
where am I? I'm doing some sort of goofy head-tilt thingy up by the lamp post.
The crop started at 3 p.m. and I only lasted until about 8:30 p.m. and then I got tired. The crop lasted until midnight and I'm so impressed by all the die-hard scrappers that went the distance! I can only go for so many hours sitting in front of the computer and then my brain gets fried. Plus, I was pretty excited to just have some time resting in the room. Remember, it has been 6 years since I got a night away to myself! So I went up to my room and watched Moonstruck on my laptop (thank you Netflix streaming video!) and a few Friends episodes that I had loaded into my itunes.
I had to be home early Sunday morning for some commitments so my vacation was pretty short, but it was just what I needed to get my mojo back! (See yesterday's Daily Digi post for a definition of mojo and how to find it).
There's a thread in the Designer Digitals forum where we shared our experiences and answered some questions so here are my responses:
who did you immediately recognize? Katie and Randy. Also Crissy because I have met her once before.
Who was as you expected and who surprised you? I had no idea what to expect so that is hard to say. I guess it was fun to just find out how much we all have in common even though we are all leading very different lives.
What was your favorite challenge? The template challenge because I love templates. I only did 2 challenges though because I left early at 8:30 p.m. I haven't had a night away from home all by myself since 2003 so I had big plans to lay in bed and watch movies as part of my vacation. LOL! (I watched moonstruck and several episodes of Friends).
Who did you hang out with? Janet and her girls, Katie, Randy, Crissy, Laura, Cindy Wycloff, and a few others here and there.
Did everyone bring their laptop? Almost. Someone brought a very nice and very large desktop.
How many challenges were there? 5 I think? I left at 8:30 so I was only there for about 3 of the challenges.Did you have snacks while you cropped? Yes! They took good care of us. In fact I still can't get over how much we got for such a low admission price. What a wonderful value!
What did you learn? I learned a lot just listening to everyone talk about what they like and don't like about digiscrapping. I also learned that I'm somewhat of a fast digiscrapper. I got done with the 2 challenges pretty quickly. I think it helped that I was only using the products on the disc they gave us. Sometimes it is easy to get lost browsing through my stash so that helped me stay focused.
When is the next one? Not sure. I'd be tempted to go to another one because it was so much fun and there are a few people that I would love to meet someday. I'm not a big fan of flying so I was very happy I could drive to this one.
Thanks Katie and Randy for treating us to such a fun time! 
So fun to meet so many new friends!
