HLS Bound

Hey party people (yes, I often say this when I walk into a room)!

So, I haven't mentioned it, but I'm headed to the Healthy Living Summit in Philadelphia this weekend.  If you've been reading for a while, you may remember that I attended last year's in Chicago and had an absolute blast.  You can read my recaps of last year's if you want to see how it was: 

Friday Fun
Summit Presentations
Food Tour of Chicago
Sunday

Truth be told, I was on the fence about going this year, for a few reasons.  Philly is not a new city for me, I've been there several times and I have even stayed at the HLS hotel two years ago for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party!  This isn't necessarity a bad thing, but I was kind of hoping they'd have it somewhere I haven't been like Denver or Phoenix so I could experience a new place.  I also have had a really weird year with TTC and in turn with blogging.  Even though I most associate my blog with the Healthy Living community, it's been harder to relate and feel connected this year since my focus shifted to TTC.  I was no longer training for races, which in the past was a huge part of my blog and made me feel like a legit part of the healthy living blog community.  I was actually kind of talked into going by Jen, who ironically is not going now (she was laid off and couldn't go)!

Despite having a weird year and feeling a little off going in, I am excited I'm going.  HLS was one of the most fun weekends I had all year last year, and I loved hanging out with my friends, meeting new people... basically the whole experience.  Greg and I weren't able to make a trip happen this month like I'd hoped, and I think this will be good for me to get away for an awesome girl's weekend with all that's happened.

I've been trying to prep some the last few weeks. 

I got new business cards made up!

I've also been trying to catch up on blog reading...  I feel way less on top of everything than I did last year!

And of course, I've been handling the daunting dask of packing for the trip.  At least I went last year so I kind of have some clue of what to expect.  A bunch of my Charlotte friends are going and they are looking to me to be the expert.  Funny!

Tuesday night I had dinner with my friend Erin, who is going to be one of my roommates at HLS.  I tried to give her the run down on stuff ;) 

We met The Big View Diner.

We shared an order of zuchinni fires to start, which neither of us remembered to photograph.

Bad bloggers!

Both of us got the Napa salad for dinner, which was greens, almonds, goat cheese, and dried cherries, with salmon.

The Big View Diner has an incredible dessert menu.  They actually have an entire glass case of cakes and dessert options up near the front of the restaurant for you to drool over if you arrive early to meet someone for dinner! 

We had to go for it, and got the apple crumb pie.

It was good, but I think I make a pretty mean apple pie myself ;)

Anyway, it was great to see Erin as always and hopefully I did an okay job of filling her in on some of what to expect at HLS.  I'm off to my last day of work for the week before I jet out of here tomorrow morning!  See ya in Philly!