Have you ever had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity come into your life? I did this past weekend. Anyone who has ever heard of the blog
www.thepioneerwoman.com knows that it's a big deal. Not only does she have a blog, but she's written at least two books, and has appeared on shows like "Today" and "Good Morning America." Recently she has been on a book signing tour for her book
Black Heels to Tractor Wheels (which my wonderful mother kindly sent to me when I told her about the book signing, and which I'm already about halfway through. Thanks again Mom!), and one of the cities was St. Louis, MO. That just happens to be our temple district, so we decided to stop by after we were done at the temple and check it out. I had never been to a book signing before, so I didn't know what to expect. It started at 6 in the evening, so when we were done at the temple around 4 we drove over to the library where it was being held to make sure we knew where to go. And it was a good thing we did! When we got there the line had already started outside, so Bill dropped me off to wait in line while he graciously took Will and Kayla somewhere for a while. I had fun chatting with other fans of hers while freezing to death for an hour or so. Bill and the kids came back after a while and we all went inside to take our seats for the Q&A they had before the signing. They introduced her and you would've thought we were at a rock concert or something. It was a lot of fun to listen to her and even catch a few glimpses of her husband, whom she affectionately calls "Marlboro Man".
We were probably only about 7-8 rows back. Awesome seats!
After the Q&A we went to another room for the book signing. As we were standing in line, library workers came to each person and asked "Would you like your book personalized?" If we said yes they asked us our name and then wrote it on a post-it-note and stuck it inside our book so that she'd know who we were without having to ask "Who do I make this out to?" 300 times. When we got up to her table, I handed over the book, she signed it, talked for a minute with Will and Kayla, then graciously posed for a picture with us.
This is definitely not one of my favorite pictures of any of us. I look WAY too excited, Kayla was trying to get off my lap at that point, and Bill wasn't originally going to be in the picture. But I still like it because we got our picture taken with The Pioneer Woman (whose real name is Ree, by the way). So needless to say, even though it ended up being a VERY late night (thank goodness we have 11:00 church now), it was definitely a very fun experience that I'll always remember. And if you've never read her blog or seen her books, go do it now!
