Laura Lohr

Not Just an Alliteration

Living La Vida Loaf-A #Tillamook #LoafLove

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In November, we were invited to join the Loaf Love Tour at the World Famous San Diego Zoo, hosted by Food Network’s own Chef Keegan of D Bar, right here in our neighborhood.  Tillamook Cheese, The Zoo, a great chef feeding us?  Yes, please!  We had an incredible experience, while being treating like VIP’s for the day.  Loaf Love? Yea, we got it!

Tillamook Allie

We were part of the private party at the beautiful San Diego Zoo, while Chef Keegan taught us how to make the best grill cheese sandwich.  After, we were given all the ingredients to make our own grill cheese, while competing with other San Diego bloggers.  We didn’t win, but I assure you that our grill cheese?  THE best EVA! 

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The Day I Became a Baywatch Babe #Fitzeefoods #SDMNOFitness

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Okay, so the title is a little very misleading. I have to admit, nonetheless, I did have a date workout session with one of the stars on Baywatch, Jeremy Jackson (a.k.a. Hobie Buchannon—Hobie is all grown up!). Well, me and ten or so of my blogging friends worked out, that is. Jeremy Jackson kicked our butts with an hour long boot camp class.

Bootcamp with Jeremy Jackson and Fitzee

There were two things I learned at the boot camp class:

1. Jeremy Jackson is very easy on the eyes and is a super nice guy.

2. He has been studying medieval torture because my body ached for three days after.

3. Working out with awesome women and a hot fitness instructor is something I could totally get used.

—Okay, three things I learned.

The boot camp class was a total blast. The fabulous DJ Pickel kept us motivated with an awesome mix of music. There was two pregnant women there that were whooping butt on everyone else. Bad asses, the both of them. I laughed. I huffed. I puffed. I learned how to do a real push-up. I hung out with awesome women. I worked up an appetite.

The event was put together by my friend Angela, one of the co-founders of San Diego Mom’s Night Out. It was great to get together with other moms and get our sweat on. After our butt-kicking, the good people from Fitzee Foods prepared their wholesome and delicious meals and made us fresh juice from the juicer. All of us girls got to chit-chat and enjoy some healthy food and beverage. LOVE LOVE LOVE the mom’s night out!

I had no idea that Fitzee Foods existed before this. They have so many fabulous offerings, including FREE fitness classes and various events on different days. They have professionals to help with your nutritional questions. What I love is that FITzee Foods makes and prepares meals daily from local, organic and all natural products. Right up my alley.

Look Better Naked gave each of us $120 gift card to be used for their fitness and detox/health services. I am having a difficult time deciding what services I want to spend my gift card on. I am leaning toward the detoxification services.

I grabbed a lasagna and the chicken enchiladas to take home to share with Mr. Bear and Allie. They both enjoyed a little of both meals. Delicious!

Fitzee Foods

Connect with these awesome people:

Look Better Naked:
Website: http://lookbetternakedmanagement.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Look-Better-Naked-Health-Management/326189940795349

FITzee Foods:
Website: http://www.fitzeefoods.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fitzeefoods
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fitzeefoods

Juicing Vegetables, Drew Canole
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VegetableJuicing

Disclaimer: I was offered an incredible evening of a bootcamp workout, dinner with Fitzee and a gift card to Look Better Naked in exchange for my honest review. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I honestly love had a blast.

Photos courtesy of San Diego Mom’s Night Out

Happy Halloween

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Last week, Allie had the coolest opportunity to show off her Halloween costume to all of San Diego with a few of my fellow San Diego blogging moms and their kiddos. They all looked so cute. Mr. Bear’s mom made most of Allie’s costume, including the cape, the skirt and the boots. It turned out so cute!

Thank you, Fox Channel 5 Morning Show for having us!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Be safe, have fun!

Vegas or Bust—A.K.A. The Best Conference Ever #BBCVegas

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Over the past three years, I have been to many conferences. For me, the blogging conferences are my excuse to have a girl’s weekend out in whatever city the conference is being held in. Last year, I went to Bloggy Boot Camp in Denver, Colorado, which meant a few days with my best friend who lives in Denver and lunch with a sorority sister. This weekend, I went to Bloggy Boot Camp in Las Vegas, mostly to spend the weekend with some of my favorite Southern California bloggers, but what I got out of it turned out to be so much more!

I have to say that with all the conferences I have been to in the past couple of years, this year at Bloggy Boot Camp in Vegas was my favorite conference yet! Not only did I get to spend time with some of the smartest women I know, I learned so much!

Friday night, about 10 of us got together for an ice cream social downstairs in the Southpoint Casino we were staying at. We had great conversation about blogging, networking, husbands, working with brands, and being moms. There were not many topics we did not touch. We ended up laughing, talking and hanging out until 3 a.m. We weren’t drinking, gambling, dancing or anything like that. We were enjoying great conversations and everyone was excited about the conference the next day. I did not get a full 8 hours of sleep and it was totally worth it! It is so important to me to connect with other bloggers and to network. The result has been that I have a really fabulous network of friends.

San Diego Bloggers

The San Diego Bloggers

I came back home with so many ideas in my head and so much gratitude in my heart. I am so grateful to have found this community of supportive women that I have had the privilege and honor to know. I have so many plans in my head, I do not know where to start, but I know which direction I want to go. I feel inspired and I am excited to start moving on! It is going to take me a week or so to synthesize all the information I got out of the conference.

Me with Melissa

I got to see many San Diego bloggers I have met many times, as well as some Southern California bloggers I know from Facebook and Twitter that I have not met before. I loved listening to all the women speakers of the day. I was inspired by the strength and courage of the women in the room, including the Warriors in Pink that were at the conference sharing their stories.

Me and Lolo

Me and Lolo

Some important lessons I learned (that I may or may not have applied yet!)

1. Set working hours. I think my working hours are going to be 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I need to make myself wholly available to my family during the hours I am not working.

2. I need to come up with a business plan. No more of this throwing things on the wall and seeing if they stick. I need to focus on where I want to be and work my way backwards.

3. I need to find ways to simplify my life so I can focus on my work during my business hours. I think this means a housekeeper is in order. I need someone to come in and do the deep cleaning so I can focus on my business and get this enterprise feedback management to help me keep track of my client´s reviews.

4. Wednesday nights are for Mr. Bear and I. We are going to have a date night every Wednesday. We need some time together, without interruptions from our little bundle of joy.

5. I do not need to worry about my critics.

“Don’t try to win over the haters. You’re not the jackass whisperer.”

— Scott Stratten, author of Unmarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.

Some of the people I hung out with that I think are AMAZING!

Tiffany of SITS and one of the women behind Bloggy Boot Camp. She is one of the funniest women and I love her! I left the conference so inspired and ready to put the work in to get where I want to be. I found out she is also my friend Tracey’s neighbor. We will have to invite her over at our next get together.

Gigi of Kludgy Mom. I got to bend Gigi’s ear for a while at the conference and she is awesome. She has so much knowledge and I learned so much in such a short conversation.

Melissa of Miz Meliz She is one of a kind! I had so much fun with her! She seriously has one of the most contagious smiles of anyone I have met before. She and her husband joined Mr. Bear, me and a few others at the Hofbräuhaus in Las Vegas. It was a lot of fun and I am so glad she joined us!

Danielle Smith of Extraordinary Mommy She inspired me so much, listening to her speak at the conference. She is one extraordinary woman for sure! She inspired me to pursue my dreams and to make them happen. She also reinforced the working hours rule that I will be soon implementing.

Carolyn West of This Talk Aint Cheap and founder of SoCal Lady Bloggers. We got to chat about a lot of things over the weekend. Carolyn was inspired over the weekend too and I cannot wait to see the incredible things that result! Carolyn joined us for dinner at the Hofbräuhaus after the conference. (We got to see quite a bit of spanking, which was very interesting. Every time someone ordered a shot, the servers would swat the shot-taker.)

Lolo of Crazy About My Baybah. Lolo is one of my good friends and although this is only the second time I have got to hug her in person, I feel like I have known her forever! It was great to see her!

Bibi of Bibi’s Culinary Journey. Bibi is from Canada, but joined the Southern California ladies meet-up on Friday night. She is a lot of fun and I am so glad we got to meet. She and her friend also joined us at the Hofbräuhaus Saturday night. She was kind enough to give us a ride over.

I also got to see Ali, Theresa, Surferwife, Laural, Wendy, and many other bloggers. Unfortunately, one day was not enough time to get to hang out with everyone.

BlogHer 2012—My Thoughts and Critiques

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We got back from our trip to BlogHer and our Tour d’East Coast two weeks ago now. It was an exciting adventure and like any fabulous vacation, I am glad to be home, sweet home, savoring the memories. The BlogHer conference was a letdown this year; I am very disappointed to say. It was disorganized. It was chaotic. It was crowded. It was stressful.

The Bad:

1. They had over 5,000 attendees and that was way too many! The New York City Hilton was completely unprepared and unable to accommodate this many people. I was at BlogHer two years ago, with 2,000 less attendees and the cracks were beginning to show back then. Thankfully, we did not stay at the Hilton. I understand there was a 15 minute wait (and more) for the elevators during peak times. Yikes!

2. There was a stampede of pushing and shoving at the Martha Stewart lunch the first day. People were stuck on the escalators and could not get off. There were so many people on the upper level, where the food was served. It did not feel safe at all. I nearly had an anxiety attack and I was not the only one. I did not talk to anyone that had a different experience that day.

Here is the only surviving photo of the Martha Stewart luncheon. Somehow, I managed to delete every single, last photo from my DSLR camera before it backed up to the Cloud or my computer. EVERY ONE!

But, THANKFULLY, my friend Danielle of SimmWorks Family Blog saved the day and sent me some of her. I am totally appreciative! Thank you! Thank you!

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Here is Martha tweeting about us. 🙂

3. At the Katie Couric luncheon the following day, I was looking for a place to sit, but every single table I went to sit down at, one person was “reserving” the nine other chairs at the table. I finally sat down and held my ground at an EMPTY chair. I was tired of caring if people had saved seats for people that had not bothered to plan ahead to get a seat before I got there. I think saving a seat for one or two people is fine. More than two people? That really is unfair. This particular person I have been following on Twitter for some time now and she is a lovely, genuine, sweet person. I think the crowds brought out the worst in a lot of people. It was tense. Once her friends arrived, however, I felt like we left on good terms. (By the way, I still think this person is a very lovely person!)

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I am maybe ten feet away from Katie Couric. I thought she was great! She has some serious arm muscles too! Man!

4. The expo was so disjointed. Rooms with brands here. Rooms with brands there. It was completely different from last year. It was difficult to locate the brands I wanted to connect with. There was not a flow. Also, from what I understand, there was some bad behavior from other bloggers that completely had some brands totally turned off. I found that some of the brands were a little more willing to give away swag than to discuss relationships. Last year seemed a lot easier to make connections.

The Good:

1. I got to hang out with some of my very favorite people and meet some new friends along the way! It was wonderful to spend time with some of my friends I had met years ago and we get to see each other once a year at the conference.

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2. I went to a lot of really fun parties with a lot of fabulous people. It was so much fun! I have to blog about the Harley Davidson party, the Land’s End party, the California Dreaming party and The Odd Life of Timothy Green premiere that Allie and Mr. Bear went to. There were so many incredible experiences, they all deserve their own post!

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3. New York City was fantastic, as always! The city was bustling and full of energy all day and night. It was awesome to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, just the three of us. Mr. Bear and Allie spent the two days I was at the conference roaming around the city. They went to a tour of the NBC studio, to the Empire State Building, to the Natural History Museum and wandered aimlessly through Central Park. Allie had a blast playing on the playground, while Mr. Bear had a leisure chat with the other dads with their kiddos. The last day in New York, we took in a Broadway show together. I have always wanted to do this! Mary Poppins was a great show. I have so many posts to write! We had a blast.

4. This was the first time Allie was in New York City with us, outside the womb. (See my post about this!) It was exciting to be in Times Square with her. She was so in awe of everything going on around her.

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Allie and Crystal—This is the bear she convinced Mr. Bear she MUST have because all of her stuffed animals were at home. In her defense, Crystal went everywhere we did.

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