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October 23, 2007

Rhinebeck 2007

Let's start with the highlight...

Belly bump!

There were many people I was looking forward to seeing this year, but tops of my list was Cara. We're due two days apart in March, and we've been having eerily similar pregnancies - yes, I'm still puking, too. I spent a good part of the festival hanging out with her, Ann, Vicki, and Cece, which was really great. We took lots of breaks, ate lots of food, sat on benches, compared pregnancy symptoms (Does your belly button itch? Do you burp a lot? etc.) and went to the bathroom a lot. And laughed and had fun, of course (Tent City? Sucked.)

This festival was a different experience for me. I had a good time, but not a superfuncrazytime like in some years past. I didn't have my main shopping buddy who had a wedding committment (or my otherbuddy who now lives far away) this year. In some ways that was a bad thing - I spent some shopping time alone without anyone to bounce ideas off of, I worried that I was a tagalong in several preformed groups. But in some ways it was a good thing - I saw a lot of barns I have missed in the past two visits, I could spend money completely unselfconsciously (not that I've felt selfconscious before, but you know what I mean), and I could move from group to group and get quality time with lots of different people. For instance, on Saturday I ate breakfast with jstrizzy (who I'd driven up with from DC), Rachael, Maia and Brooke - meeting Maia and Brooke for the first time (Rachael and I remembered that we'd first met at the March for Women's Lives, way back in April 2004). I went out to dinner that night with the same group, plus Alison (who I didn't recognize right away, and then when I finally realized that I've been reading her blog for ages it seemed too late to fess up) - we had a wonderful waitress, Jill, who recognized our yellow wristbands (the two-day pass to the event) and called us out as wool pigs (rightly so). Check out her etsy shop!
When I got to the festival, I immediately ran into Jess and Casey, and spent some time walking with them and seeing them treated like the rockstars they are (founders of ravelry and all). I also got to catch up with Maya, which was cool. Then I ran into Cara and Ann and spent some time with them. At the Blogger Meetup I ran into the Boston posse - Johanna, Alison, and Wendy with adorable babies in tow, Stitchy, Mel, and I'm sure others that I'm forgetting. I met up with them again later in the afternoon when I needed to sit down for a break. At the Meetup I also met many bingo players and ravelers, whose names now escape me - but say Hi! I ran into Amy, and saw several DC gals (Ann, Elspeth, Carolina, Aimee, plus a few that I hadn't met before), and shopped with them on Sunday morning. As you can see, I bounced around like a little pinball. I was definitely a "bonus" in everyone's groups, rather than a "must-have", but that's how it goes.
Near misses: at the Ravelry party I saw Stephanie but couldn't bring myself to say Hi (she was hanging out with friends) - I am on her blog, though, in the background of her photo of Jess. I never saw Kate Gilbert, which was too bad because I wanted to show off my modified Arwen. Now I'll just have to send pictures (speaking of, FO photo shoot hopefully this weekend).

Only took a few photos this weekend...

Ravelry Party

Knitter Boy

I Kinneared the boy, who was calmly and quietly keeping himself occupied with his knitting (while his family made one last trip through Building A, no doubt). Love the Rhinebeck experience!

Photos and description of the haul to come - they're up on flickr if you want a sneak peek.

Posted by Sarah at October 23, 2007 10:28 PM | in: baby , events , travel | Permalink