In Which We Have a Blogger Party Despite the Tornado!

Okay, so there really wasn't a REAL tornado, but there was something that ALMOST was a tornado and some people even filmed a thing that really LOOKED like one (and as you can hear here, we aren't used to tornadoes in these parts!) But still...

....whatever it was, the storm that blew through here on Saturday just a few hours before our party was to start was EPIC.

I took some pictures of my own from what it looked like where I stood:

And.....I even took a little movie! See what you think... this was almost a tornado, right? The sky was green (though you can't tell from the pictures and movie, but I promise, it was!) and so I think that it was so close and that's very weird for here....and some people are saying that it didn't quite form because of our mountains. Which I'm sure is good thing, though it was pretty exciting!




So.... anyway! This all happened just a few hours before our party was to start. And we were all tweeting each other what we were seeing and wondering if the party would happen. I said... ah... it'll blow over! The party goes on!

Well, it did stop raining sort of. But it sure cooled things off and got the park all wet! So we went and wiped of the benches and tables, dug out our jackets and yes, the party went on!

Bur first, another picture. When we got to the park, we were fascinated with this big bird trying to dry out his wings:

He was just standing like that, totally still,
holding his wings out to the air. Awesome.

Well, so only a few brave souls showed up. Besides the rain, it was also Salt Lake's first ComicCon! So, almost every blogger and author went there and NOT to the party! And so, why weren't we there? And why did we plan the party for the same day? Because we didn't know about this event when we planned things! GAH!!! Next year, we'll ALL be there! And we'll plan the party for a different day and then EVERYONE will come!

But, we had fun with our small crowd and enjoyed talking books and eating treats. We had one brand new author join us, Julia King, and we hope to get our hands on her book and pass it around for a sort of informal book tour. It's called Felicite Found and it looks awesome. So, stay tuned for that! (And thanks to her for coming even though she was sick and didn't feel good at all!)

We played a little game to get to know each other better and as a way to hand out the book swap books. Later, Kami had fun giving us all silly nick names. This is what we discovered:

Jenny from Alternate Readality: Number 1 meanest blogger and most creative blog name
Kami from Kami's Library Thoughts: Number 2 meanest blogger and post the most reviews a week
Kathy from Read This Instead: Number 3 meanest blogger
Jessica from Books: A True Story: The "other" Jessica!
Jenni from Jenni Elyse: posted the most blogs this past week
Suey from It's All About Books:  Blogger Mom! (You can decide what that means for sure!)

David (Kami's husband), Kami, Jessica, Kathy and son
Jenni Elyse in the background

Jenny and her fiance, Guy

Suey's husband, Stuey, talking to new author, Julia King

Thanks to those of you who did come! It was fun! Hopefully next year we'll figure out a better day so more of you can come.