I’m baaaaack.

Sorry for the lack of blogging yesterday, but I was busy from the second I got up to the second I went to sleep and the Internet was limited.

So let’s go back to Friday. I arrived in Philly around 6pm, dropped my stuff and headed out to the HLS opening cocktail party at Reading Terminal Market.

One of the first people I saw was Heather, my HLS roomie from last year. I love this girl, and I’m so excited for her future tiny sneakers.

Roomies before props.

Roomies AFTER props. [photos via Anne]

My camera died pretty much immediately after this, but let’s just say I had a good time catching up with new and old friends.

After the party, Ashley and I walked to Paulie’s Pizza to get a little more fuel for our long run the next day. I’ve never had pizza the night before a long run, but it worked out just fine.

We went to sleep a bit after 11 and were up at 4:30 for our long run.

“Why are we running marathons?” I whispered in the dark as we got ready by the light of our iPhones. I didn’t get a good answer to why not, so out I went.

We went down to the lobby at 5 to meet a group of about 20 other crazy people who also had long runs scheduled.

Yeah. It was still dark.

We ran along Kelly Drive by the water.

Past boathouses

And were almost back towards the hotel when we saw Evan. After my epic race last weekend, my legs were exhausted, and I had a really hard time running yesterday. But nearly 14 miles later, we finally made it back to the hotel for breakfast. My camera ate the photos (?), but it was sponsored by Attune and included lots of yummy cereal and fruit.

After two great sessions, this happened.

Cynthia, Ashley and I spoke about how to make friends using the Internet.

I don’t know what I was saying here, but I didn’t drop the mic or vomit on the table, so I consider my panel a success. There’s definitely things I’d do differently next time around, but I’m proud to have my second big public speaking event under my belt.

We were the session right before lunch, so I think people were really just listening for “Okay, it’s lunchtime.” I mean, I know I was. It meant I was done and could leave the stage 🙂

We finally heard those words and bolted outside for lunch, which included quinoa salad and sandwiches.

Ashley was apparently a little hungry.

The sandwiches were all on donated Great Harvest bread, and were really filling.

Kath and I split some (dough) balls.

Speaking of Kath, she totally rocked our afternoon. One of her readers shared some Dogfish beer with her, and she shared it with the table.

Which made Monica’s already-interesting discussion about blogger safety even more interesting.

So, it may have taken us a few people to open the bottle.

But it was well worth it.

Gretchen, Tina, me, Ashley and Kath

After our mini cocktail hour, we decided it was time for real cocktail hour and went to vintage, a cute wine bar near the hotel.

Hey Beth!

I <3 these girls. Katy’s presentation was great, obviously, but even more fun was geeking out over HTML, widgets and social media monitoring over a few cocktails.

I also love wine.

We moved over to a whiskey bar called Time before heading over to El Vez for dinner. (Yes, from one place named Time to another.)

My cousin Leanne came to dinner! She put her little twins down to sleep and met us out for some drinks and food. I don’t think she was too overwhelmed by all the bloggers, and she seemed like she had a good time.

It was so great to see her–I used to take the train up to Philly to visit her and go out when I was in college, but for some reason I’ve only been to Philly once since I graduated college. I met a million of her friends back then, so it was fun to introduce her to some of mine.

Ashley talked me into the Pink Cadillac. Margarita? Fine.

Leanne and I ended up splitting the fajitas, which were enough to feed, oh, everyone at the table?

[photo via Meghann]

This morning we did a big group 5K run/walk around some of the sights, including the Rocky steps.

[photo also via Meghann]

Check out that height I got.

Back at the hotel, breakfast and bananas were waiting. (My bananaphone said to go back to sleep.)

After Heather gave Ashley and me a ride back, my parents came in to drop off my little man.

It’s time to catch up on snuggling and napping. I had a great time catching up with blogger buddies and making new ones, but I’m glad to be home.

If you were at HLS, what was your favorite part? If you weren’t at HLS, did you do anything fun this weekend?