Meeting The Pioneer Woman

Saturday, at approximately 4:45 in the afternoon, I discovered Ree was in the PNW and would be signing her cookbook at 5:00 at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park.

In less than 10 minutes, I grabbed Sydney, my camera, my copy of her cookbook, and we were out the door - we weren't gonna miss an opportunity to meet P-Dub!

I've never been to a book signing, so I didn't know what to expect.

We arrived at the bookstore at 5:15, and were given a signing line ticket with these instructions. We were in group J which didn't seem too bad since at 5:20 they had already called group B.

By 7:00, we were beginning to wonder if our group would ever be called...

Thankfully, there's a nice area with a few restaurants adjacent to the bookstore. We enjoyed a yummy snack of sushi and gyoza. We even tried bubble tea for the first time and loved it!

As we continued waiting, we spent most of our time reading books in the kids section of the store. While in there, Ree's oldest daughter came and sat down near us.

Sydney was immediately "star struck".

It took a little coaxing, but I managed to convince Sydney to go over and ask for an autograph.

That was a huge highlight of the night for Sydney.

Around 8:30 we went and peeked at Ree signing. I was debating whether we should stay or go. We had already invested so much time waiting, I didn't want to give up, but things were moving so slowly...

Finally, around 10 p.m. group J was called - whoohoo!

At about 10:40ish after waiting almost 5 1/2 hours, we finally met The Pioneer Woman.

It was totally worth the wait!!!

She was extremely gracious, sweet, and funny. I appreciated her taking the time to talk with us a bit. She'd been signing for almost 6 hours straight at this point!

On the ride home, Sydney told me this was one of the best nights ever. Something she'll be sure to tell her grandkids about someday.