It Felt Like a First Date….

When I first started blogging, I didn’t have a clue what a blog even was.  A guy I went to college with started one and posted it on good ole FB and I saw that and thought… hmmmm… so that morning I signed up for one myself.  Absolutely NO idea what a blog was, I jumped in head first.  (It was obvious by my first post!)

So jump forward a few months, maybe even half a year and I kind of “got my groove”.  I still wasn’t 100% sure what I was doing (heck, I still don’t know) but I was introduced somehow to the Pioneer Woman.  One day I was reading through her post on one of her book signing trips to Portland and was compelled to go down through the commenter’s comments.  If you’ve ever commented on her blog, you have a place where you can leave your blog.  If the names are blue, they have a blog attached.  So I started hitting the names of a few just to see if it might be someone I would be interested in following their blog.   

That’s when I stumbled upon Stef’s blog, Too Much To Do So Little Time.  And then I saw this post… I knew we’d be friends.  So we got to following each other emailing and eventually swapped phone numbers which lead to texts & a few phone calls.  Yeah we’re cool like that :).

So jump forward to 2012… a few weeks ago Stef emailed me and told me that her step-momma wasn’t doing very well.  Now Stef is from around these parts but she and her family now live up in the upper Northwest.  But her parents both still live in this here state I’m in :).  Then a few days later she emailed me to tell me that her step-momma passed away and she was headed “home” for the funeral.  While she was here, if we could arrange it, could we meet up?

So hubby and I talked about it, made sure we didn’t have any prior plans or commitments (I’m horrible with commitments!) and then we decided to meet up with Stef and her daughter on Saturday in Springfield at Zio’s.  What’s better, good food, new friends, beautiful weather!

We made plans for meet up at 11:30 so we could avoid the lunchtime crowd.  Boy I’m glad we did!  Hubby & I got there a bit before them so we went ahead and got a table.

I told her to shoot me a message when they pulled into the parking lot and I’d meet them at the front door.  She (or possibly the Offspring, hopefully whoever wasn’t driving!) sent me a text saying they were running about 20 minutes behind (so said the GPS) but they’d be there shortly.

I looked at hubby and laughed and said, Boy this feels like a first date.  He just giggled at me :).

Yummy bread! & dipping sauces with their seasoning & EVOO.

When they got there, they shot me a text and I walked up to the front.  I so need to steal a copy of the “first meeting” photo that The Offspring took of Stef and me.  I mean come on, it’s true blogger style right, although I just took my point & shoot vs dragging taking my big camera.

They had never been to a Zio’s so they asked what we recommended.  Well hubby & my favorite thing there is the Tomato Florentine Soup & Chicken Parmesan.  They went for that as well.  The servers were like now who got the Tomato Florentine?  And who got the Tomato Florentine.  It was funny, maybe one of those had to be there moments though :).  (Sorry, no pics, we all ate it way to fast!)

Then it was time for the Chicken Parm.  Stef and I both remembered to take pics this time…. but um… mine had this funky thing that I kept referring to as a Rooster Tail.  Come on, it stuck up and made for an ugly shot of my food.

So hubs saved the day and took a pic of his for me 🙂

After we were done eating, we all had to have to go boxes.  The waitress wrote “His” and “Hers” on our boxes.  We joked that we’d know which was mine because of the Rooster Tail.

We sat there and had a good chat for about 2 hours.  Hubs & Stef geeked out and left the Offspring and me a little puzzled at times, but hey, they found people who could talk on same terms, so it worked :).

And in true “mother” fashion, Stef tried to tell a few stories on the Offspring. ha!

And here’s a group shot of the 4 of us 🙂

For my first “Blate” as I’ve seen them called, not to shabby 🙂  Hope you guys had a fabulous time with us Country Folk and my stories of shoveling horse poop & pulling baby lambs :). haha!  Also hope you had a great trip back to Oregon.