By now you have probably read the accounts of Shark, Lin and Vanilla.  If not, why not?  These are fabulous folks!  I should know I have met them.  They have been guests in my house and I can say that they are a delightful bunch.  Each of them has already posted about our meet at what Lin’s children call the Convention of Blog-Posting Murderers, which Sylvia and I hosted over the weekend.  Here I am the last to post about the fun and festivities, but more about that later.

Trying to arrange a meeting of a group of active individuals is probably a teeny bit easier than herding cats.  Lin managed to do that. We are as close to centrally located as one could hope for and the only available date involved a schedule conflict for Sylvia.  Her amateur radio club for women operators had their annual picnic scheduled on that same day.  She didn’t want to miss meeting the bloggers, but she couldn’t miss the picnic.  The easy solution was to invite the bloggers to the picnic.  It worked and worked well.

After lunch, we bloggers adjourned to the house.  We nearly lost one couple, but we did arrive there without [significant] incident.  Everyone agreed that outside the house is better than inside.  In an effort to bribe them so they would say nice things nothing about the inside, we sent each home with some produce from our garden.

Of course, there were the obligatory group shots.  There was the predicable camera envy going on at that time.  It only became worse on Sunday when I couldn’t retrieve pictures from Sylvia’s camera.  Eventually, I worked past that problem only to find that I had technical problems in the pictures.  Truth is that I didn’t want to post a picture of me standing in a group of smiling bloggers with a “What am I doing here?” look all over my face.  Would you?  Lin and Joe to the rescue.

Vanilla (David), Shark (Joan), Lin and Chuck.        — Joe Kautz photo

As we were taking photos, Vanilla asked Shark, “Who do you always move to the front in photos?”  She replied, “I’m short, so I always stand in front.”  That was all the cue the class clowns needed.  The next shot looked like this:

Guess which are the “goofs?” — Joe Kautz photo

We had a great time sharing stories, answering questions and making each other laugh.  My ribs are still a bit sore from all the laughter that we all shared.

All too soon, our time together was over and the band of friends had separated.  What a pleasant group of people to be with.  It was like family.  How could it not be when we’ve been reading each others posts for years?

Is this a group that I’d want to get “snowed-in” with for a weekend?  My goofy mind thinks of things like that.  I soon realized that Lin would be looking out the window for the city snow plow to come and get us out.  Shark would strap on her snow shoes and would go out for a stroll.  I would head for the barn to start the tractor and clear the driveway.  Vanilla would be laughing at us–from Texas.  He’s not going to have anything to do with the snow.

What do you think?  Would you want to be snowed in with a group like that?