Top Ten Favorites From Type A Parent Conference

This past weekend I was in Asheville for the Type A Parent Conference which, for those of you who don’t know, is a blogging conference put on by Kelby. It was my second blogging conference. Last summer I went to BlogHer in New York where there were thousands of people. This conference had about 400 so it was a smaller, more intimate conference. Here are my favorite top 10 things from the conference:

1) Being Understood (And Meeting Other Bloggers). I get the weirdest looks from people in my “real life” when I talk about bloggers and people on Twitter as my “friends”. At a blogging conference we all have online friends so I don’t get any strange looks because they all get me. They understand why I love blogging, why I share so much with everyone, and that Twitter is used for other purposes than talking about one’s lunch.

2) The Sessions. I can’t even begin to share everything I learned in the sessions because there was so much good information. I took a lot of notes and added a lot to my to-do list to implement. My favorite session was the closing keynote with Liz from Cool Mom Picks whose talk was entitled “The Myth Of Doing It All”. It really made me realize that I can’t do everything on my own so the first thing I did when I got home was hire someone to help me watch the kids occasionally.

3) Down Time. At BlogHer I went from one event to another and didn’t have much time for personal interactions or time to reflect on what I was learning. Type A was totally different. We had plenty of time between sessions and meals and before the night time parties to connect with others, have conversations, and really get to know these other people.

4) Asheville. Love, love, love that town! I had never been there before but now would put it on my top 10 list of places I’d like to vacation to. It’s an artsy town nestled in the mountains and seems to be very family friendly.

5) The Food. I am so thankful that there were many healthy food options available at breakfast and lunchtime. The restaurants I went to all had delicious food, too. I ate outside of my “comfort zone” when we went to Zambra’s, a tapas restaurant, where I tried portions of foods that included ingredients I’d never heard of before.

6) The Parties. Each night there were parties at the hotel for us to attend. I was so tired by the end of the day that I didn’t stay out too late but I did attend them all, even if just for a short amount of time. My favorite party was put on by Clever Girls Collective and sponsored by UbiSoft. There was a Smurfs Dance Party which I had said I was not going to participate in because I had never played the game nor am I that great of a dancer. Kim asked me to join the group she was putting together for Collective Bias so I agreed I would join in and embarrass myself. It was fun but we didn’t win. I did however, win one of the door prizes which was a Wii and some video games which made me the happiest woman ever. I have already informed my children that it’s “mommy’s” but I will share with them :)

7) The Conference Sponsors. There were some wonderful companies at the conference including some I had never heard of. I enjoyed talking to the sponsors and came home with some great products for my family.

8) My Roommates. I stayed in a hotel room with Jill of Musings from Me and Kris of Little Tech Girl. I enjoyed getting to know both of them and actually ended up spending most of my time with Kris which was great because it seems like she knew everyone! She also seems to know everything about technology and is going to redesign my blog for me in the coming months :)

9) Roadtripping. Dodge gave Kris and I a Dodge Caravan to drive to the conference. It was a long ride from Chicago to North Carolina and back but it made the conference affordable since we didn’t have to pay for transportation. This van has so many awesome features that it needs it’s own post.

10) My Conference Sponsor. My ticket sponsor was New Blog Hosting and Peter, the owner, was also at the conference as a conference sponsor. I enjoyed representing such a great company who really wants to work with bloggers and provide them with affordable hosting options. I  loved that I was working with a company that donates part of the hosting fee to charity and also loved providing my blogger friends with some chocolate and a chance to win a couple great prizes.

(Disclosure: My travel was provided by Dodge and my ticket provided by New Blog Hosting but all thoughts are my own.)