Spring Blogger Meet Up Weekend In Review

It's been two weeks since the big Spring Blogger Meet Up in French Lick, Indiana, and my mind is still blown.  

When Holly and I reconnected in Indianapolis at the SDE Kindergarten Conference back in November, she and I began brainstorming ways we could make this year bigger and better.  

First of all, I cannot say enough about my friend Holly.  She is by far and away one of the most AMAZING, inspiring teachers I know.  She puts every ounce of herself into her projects, and it shows, people.  This weekend wouldn't have been half of what it was without her!

On Friday, my best friend, Tiffany, her baby boy, and I packed up the car (and I mean literally, it was PACKED... I wish I had taken a picture!) and headed a few miles down the road to French Lick.  

Click the picture to learn more about the resort!

If you've never been to the resort, it's a great place to enjoy a weekend away!  Whether you want to take your kids for a family fun weekend, or enjoy a weekend away with your significant other at the casino, French Lick has something for you!  We go every Christmas for the Polar Express train ride the town hosts and stay at the hotel.  It's a tradition that my kids hope we keep until they have kids.

We met up with our roommate and friend, Marissa from We Are First Grade Stars for a yummy dinner at the Power Plant Bar and Grill at the hotel.  I had YUMMY crab cakes that I am still thinking about two weeks later... :)

We had lots to do to get ready for the big event, so after dinner, we headed back to our room to work on some lovely name badges from Schoolgirl Style.

Even though we were working, we had so much fun talking and catching up with each other.

Early the next morning, we headed down to get everything ready for the big event.  

{Brittany, Heather, Holly, Amanda, Heidi, Marissa, and I worked really hard to get it all set up!  And yes, I did an outfit change after this picture was taken.}

To kick off the event, we did an ice breaker all about INSPIRATION!  Everyone had to write a little something about themselves, then we all introduced ourselves to the crowd.  This was the end result:

Which was really what the weekend was all about.

We had a fun teacher tool swap, where we played a fun left/right game to exchange our favorite teacher tool.  I received an awesome gift of organizational notepads, pens, and CHOCOLATE from the wonderful Maja at KookyKinders.

Really, this meet up had lots of great professional development opportunities.  After our ice breaker, we had a Q&A time where teachers were able to have questions answered about blogging and TPT.  Then, we broke out into table sessions, which was possibly my favorite part of the day!  My BFF and I led a session on using iPads in the Classroom.  I wish I could have gone to every single one of the table sessions... I heard rave reviews on each one of them!

The day wouldn't be complete without some fantastic companies showing us some TEACHER LOVE!   A huge thanks goes out to these companies for giving items for our giveaway:

* TPT
* SDE
* Lakeshore Learning Materials
* Scentos
* Creative Teaching Press
* Scentsy - Ciera Harris
* Orgami Owl - Brenda Hart Frady
* Tallahassee Sunday
* Erin Condren
* Schoolgirl Style
* ESGI
* Hue Animation Studio
* Claire Marie Designs
* Brain Pop
* Seat Sack
* Younique by Dana

But that's not all!  

EVERYONE received a lovely bag from Vera Bradley, a lanyard from GoNoodle, products from Scentos, and... wait for it... AN ERIN CONDREN PLANNER!!!  SAY WHAT?!?!

The day didn't end there, though... Time for the PJ Party!

Another shot of the crew...

Anyone up for some GoNoodle?!?!

My favorites...

A huge thanks goes out to GoNoodle and TPT for making the PJ Party happen!  

Now, remember that swag I mentioned earlier?  YOU can win one!  We are giving THREE away!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out some other fabulous posts about this fun event!  Make sure to check back around the first of the year when all the details of the #springbloggermeetup2016 become available!  You won't want to miss out!

An InLinkz Link-up