My Lori Foster Get Together Adventure

I'm ready to dish on my trip to Lori Foster's Reader and Author Get Together in Ohio last weekend. It has taken me a week to collect my thoughts, upload pictures, and recover from spending so much time driving.

Thursday June 1st
The con ran from Friday the 3rd thru Sunday the 5th, but my daughter and I headed out a day early so we could take our time. The drive from Massachusetts to Ohio took us around 13 hours. We left about 2:30am got in around 4pm. Once we got there I needed to stretch my tight muscles so we went to IKEA. Neither of us had ever been there before and loved it (even though I took us about a half hour to find the exit). They had some really cool stuff. I picked up something for my son.

the view of IKEA from our room, had no idea how big it really was until we went.

 Friday June 2nd
The conference didn't kick off until 4pm so we decided to spend the morning at the Cincinnati Zoo. along with all the animals we saw we also watched the The Wizard of Oz 4-D Experience.  We even had quite the experience feeding a giraffe. 

 Then it was back to the hotel to freshen up and register for the conference. After getting our goodie bags we headed to the ballroom for the opening ceremony and Pizza party. We sat at the table with the fabulous Steam Punk centerpeice (which my daughter won) made by authors Mari Freeman and Samantha Kane, who also sat at the table along with author Kristin Daniels. Book bloggers @thejeepdiva, @jade_mermaid, @zombvmpr were at the table too. After dinner we played games and mingled until midnight

playing pin the tag on the dog-tags.

Saturday June 4th
The day started early at 8am for breakfast in the ballroom. Then it was off to the workshops. First on my list was the presentation with Secret Cravings Publishing. Then we went to The Joys and Struggles of Being Different with Leanna Reneee Hieber. Once the morning workshops were over we did some mingling and had lunch.

some of the 181 gift baskets for the charity raffle

We kicked the afternoon workshops off with COS and Fresh Fiction. We talked about what readers were looking for when the visited author and other reader websites. Lots of info given in a short time. :) Then we took a much needed, but quick break before heading back to the ballroom for raffle drawings and author group photos before dinner.

all the authors that attended

Saturday night we went to the Sock Hop thrown by Author Island. There was games, great music, and more mingling with awesome readers and authors.

Sunday June 5th
We took time for breakfast then hit the road for home. Another 13 hour ride most of it through the Pennsylvania mountains and we finally made it. We had a good time, met great people, and I even started a collection of romance trading cards.

Rebecca (Adele Quinn) won the steam punk centerpiece with Mari Freeman, and Samantha Kane