The Pioneer Woman Book Signing

This weekend Steve and I drove 4.5 hours to Atlanta, GA for the Pioneer Woman book signing!  She was there promoting her book Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, which is the story of how she met, married, and started a life with her husband “Marlboro Man.”  It was a long drive, and I wanted to leave early enough so that we could get there in time to be towards the front of the line.  So I set my alarm for 9:00am.  Yes…what an early riser!!!  But that is early compared to our normal waking hour of 10:00 – 10:30am.  Now if you’re mouth is hanging open at this point thinking, “how can they possibly wake up that late every day?”, let me assure you that we make up for it by going to bed between 2:30-3:30am every night.

So anyway, I woke up at 9am, hoping to leave by 10am, but when I woke Steve up at 9:45 he gave his famous line of “give me a few more minutes.”  Ahhhhh!  Doesn’t he know that it’s THE PIONEER WOMAN we’re going to see!?  There are going to be hundreds of women there and we have 4.5 hours to drive….plus an hour time difference between Nashville and Atlanta.  WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW!!!

We finally ended up getting on the road around 10:45, and we had to stop by Barnes & Noble to pick up her cookbook because I didn’t want to get to the Borders in Atlanta and have them be sold out.  We also had to drop our house key off with Rustin, since he and Elizabeth would be taking care of the fur babies while we were gone.

For most of the drive to Atlanta we listened to Fox News on our Sirius XM Radio, listening to the news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  After the president’s speech and Q&A it started getting pretty redundant so we switched to some tunes.

Then finally the country farms and pastures started diminishing and traffic and high rises started coming into view.  We were almost there!

Downtown Atlanta!  Woot woot!!!

When we exited the freeway, I noticed these beautiful blossoming trees and I just had to snap a picture!  Spring is finally here!  If only that horrible truck wasn’t there ruining a perfectly good picture.

I had always had these preconceived notions of Atlanta being super ghetto and dirty and unsafe.  But when we arrived, that was not the impression I got at all.  First of all, when we exited the freeway we had to drive through this multimillion dollar neighborhood with these gigantic stately homes.  Then, when we got to the main road the buildings were beautiful.  There were nice cars everywhere, and it wasn’t what I expected at all, which was a nice surprise.

Finally, we had made it!  And I wanted to be one of the first people to spot The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond!

Instead, I was the first to spot her husband, Marlboro Man, and her 2 sons, Bryce and Todd.  It was just about as exciting to see them as it was to see The Pioneer Woman herself!  They are in almost all of her pictures, so to meet them in person was really special.  I don’t know what I was thinking, but after Steve took this picture of us tons of women crowded in asking to take pictures and getting him to sign their books.  Why hadn’t I thought to ask him to sign my book?  He was, after all, one of the 2 main characters!

So I asked the boys to sign my book. 🙂

And then I waited…..

….and waited….

….and finally, it was my turn!   Again.

Yay!  Look at me!  My name is Joanna, and Marlboro Man is signing my book!

Thank you Romance Novel Cowboy!  It was so nice to meet you for the 2nd time in one day!

Here’s a close up of Bryce, Ree’s oldest son….but 3rd born child.  Look at his cute cowboy belt buckle!

Steve tried making friends with Todd, Ree’s youngest, but he was pretty shy.

Todd seemed like he was getting pretty bored.

So did Bryce.

How cute are these boots?  I had to take a picture of them!  And then I had to make everything else black and white so that they would stand out even more. 🙂  Boots are definitely a must for when I have kids.

This is Marlboro Man.  He is a REAL cowboy on a REAL ranch in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma.

He is the cowboy that swept Los Angeles girl, Ree, off her feet so that she abandoned her plans to move to Chicago and settled down to be a country ranch wife instead.

These are their 2 beautiful boys (their 2 daughters were back home in Oklahoma).  Aren’t they cutie patooies!?

And look!  They’re holding hands!  So sweet!

Now back to business.  I was at the front of the line at this point, and had already been waiting for 4 hours.  There were still this many people behind me in line!  I can’t imagine what time they got out of there.

It’s almost my turn!  Only a few people in front of me at this point.  My back was really hurting by this time, but at least I had her book to read to pass the time.  Unfortunately when there was only one person in front of me, Ree decided she needed a potty break.  Sigh….why did it have to be right before my turn?  I know, I know, when you have to go, you have to go!

Oh my goodness!  I’m next!!!

Waiting patiently….or impatiently….I’ll never tell.

Then finally, it was my turn!  “Hi!  I’m Joanna and I’m your biggest fan!!!”  Just kidding, I didn’t say that.  But I was pretty nervous.

But she was SUPER nice, and gorgeous!

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say, but she was very good at asking questions and keeping the conversation going….and actually seeming interested in what I had to say!  That had to be hard after meeting so many people in a row and still being able to make each person feel like they were the only one in the room.  Thank you for that, Ree.

Here I was telling her about our e-cigarette business and she said, “Are those those things they had on the Real Housewives of (insert city here)?”  And I was like, “Umm, I have no idea cuz I don’t watch that show, but I know you do!!!”  She mentions the Real Housewives show often in her blog.  We both had a good laugh about that. 😀

It was a great birthday weekend!  And I’m so glad we went!  Thank you, Steve, for making the 4.5 hour trek with me to Atlanta to see my favorite blogger, The Pioneer Woman!  You are amazing and I love you so much!

We couldn’t leave Atlanta without going to IKEA!!!!  We finally got a coffee table for the bonus room!  And several picture frames.  Oh how I love Ikea!  How do they offer all those items for such a good price!?

When I got home, these pretty buds were waiting to greet me.

Spring has officially come to Nashville!  Oh how I have waited for you!

Then I had to ruin the day by burning myself while making dinner that night.  I did this by lifting the lid off a boiling pot of water and allowing the hot steam to burn my wrist.  Sigh….