I love being part of such a big program. The best part is the relationship side – meeting so many new people and reconnecting with so many people I’ve been social with online. My only regret is not getting to spend time with everyone.

I love meeting the moms and meeting their families.  I’m so struck by how they manage so many things at one time and still maintain huge smiles on their faces.  I tend to usually get the comment “You look stressed.”

I love seeing the looks of joy and awe in the eyes of the children.  At the Disney Junior dance party the kids seem to be mesmerized by the characters and the action on the stage.  It was so much fun to watch.

At the Talk with a Disney Chef & Sommelier, I was so impressed by the questions asked by the group. They were asking things I never would have thought of – so insightful!  This was a big hit.  Who doesn’t enjoy some serious Disney dining?

The speakers were awesome!  Chris Brogan (above) delivered another humorous yet informative talk.  He’s just plain spectacular.  What I love most is how he engages with the audience.  He mingles with them during the entire conference. This means so much to people – uh – called relationship building!  He’s a master at it.

We scattered little surprises throughout the Celebration, like a Duffy surprise after lunch.

Ah, to be back at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort – lakeside, on a gorgeous spring night, listening to live music. That was nice!

This weekend I’m planning on a super-duper mani/pedi to get relaxed.  I may even pay a few bucks extra for some extra foot massage time. Just sayin’…..

I’ve been spending this morning working on last minute emails and documents for the conference.  My Mikita has been right by my side waiting patiently for me to get done and spend quality ball time with her.  I’ll take a few breaks and entertain her since she’s been such an angel today. I’ve got iTunes cranked to my favorites songs and looking out the window at a spectacular gorgeous day.

I love putting events like this together.  While some days it’s no picnic the reward happens when it all comes together when everyone arrives.  There is an extremely talented team working together on all the details.  That’s also what makes it rewarding.  I’m blessed to work with awesome people.

The weather forecast for this week (as of this morning) was sunny and warm. Let’s keep our fingers crossed it stays that way.

Looking forward to meeting and seeing everyone in a few short days.

I still need some time to gather my thoughts for a coherent blog post on the entire event. I’ve been visiting some of the site from the bloggers who attended and I am so impressed with their writing talents and amount of content they publish.  Janice and Susan from 5 Minutes For Mom are simply amazing!  Their energy levels are through the roof and it shows in their website.

While I gather my thoughts, here are some photos from the event. These are a compilation of my pictures, plus photos from Preston Mack – the official Disney photographer on Friday, and Josh Hallet of hyku.com who attended Thursday’s breakfast with Guy Kawasaki.

Kathy Ireland captivated the audience with her eloquent presentation.

Backstage with Kathy Ireland. What a beautiful person she is!

Walt Disney World Resort President Meg Crofton welcomed the moms to the first ever Social Media Moms Celebration.

Maxine Clark, founder and Chief Executive Bear of Build-A-Bear Workshop delivered the opening presentation that set the tone for the rest of the day.

Cool shot of the American Adventure rotunda where Guy Kawasaki presented. Photo compliments of Josh Hallett, hyku.com

Marissa Jaret Winokur had the crowd laughing with her creative presentation on how she uses social media.

Chris Brogan and moms from the conference at Epcot on Thursday nights.

Chris Brogan and me at the end of the day’s events on Friday. Oh yeah – the Muppets showed up for the festivities, too!

ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover star Ty Pennington at Thursday’s Volunteer Family Celebration event at Epcot.

The new Guinness World Record for structure made out of canned food. The food was all packaged up and distributed to local food banks in Florida and Georgia, enough to feed 70,000 meals!

Two more books just arrived on my doorstep this week from Amazon.com.  I’ve been very fortunate to meet some wonderful people recently who just happen to be authors as well and I can’t wait to read their books.  I met Gary Vaynerchuk in September at Disney and found him very engaging and interesting.  His new book, Crush It, was just about to hit the shelves.  Gary is nicknamed the “social media sommelier” for building his empire on wine tasting and his wine library by using social media skills and platforms. 

And then in October I was speaking at BlogWorld Expo where I happened upon Guy Kawasaki.  I had been following Guy for a while (as in following on Twitter and alltop.com) and couldn’t believe that I was actually sitting a table with him having breakfast.  He is an amazing wealth of knowledge and so down to earth. He’s also authored numerous books with the most recent “Reality Check“.  So I had to buy that, too.

Then there are the Carl Hiaasen books my friend Mike has loaned me. I’ve read two of those and love Carl’s writing!  I’ve got about 4 more to read.

And then I read on someone’s blog – can’t remember who – about how wonderful the book is about Steve Job’s presentation style. Had to get that, too.

Bottom line is – I’ve got so many books to read and so little time to read them all. I must be banned from buying any more books until I catch up with these. The great thing is, I am so excited about what I can learn from all of them!

I’ve got a 5-hour flight to LA coming up soon, maybe I can use that time to get going.

This was probably my quickest ever trip to Vegas.  I arrived on Friday around noon and left Saturday night on the red-eye.  I took an hour Friday afternoon to walk down “the strip”.  No offense to anyone out there and again, this is just my opinion, but I’m fairly sure that Vegas ain’t my kinda town.   I don’t gamble, don’t smoke, not into sequinned clothes and can’t afford the shows. But the town was certainly hopping!

While I was in Vegas I had the pleasure of running into two of the more prominent social media gurus, Steve Rubel and Guy Kawasaki.  Not only did I run into them, but I was extremely fortunate enough to sit down to breakfast with them for nearly 2 hours.  What a morning that was!  Their knowledge and insights were fascinating.  They talked Twitter, LifeStream, and a lot of conversation around the best iPhone apps. 

If I had been smart I would have grabbed my notebook and written down everything they said.  The funniest moment was when Steve dragged out his tool box for all his electronic gear he travels with – which he’s downsized to pretty much just the iPhone lately.  The coolest item was a battery charger he picked up at Walmart for about $30 that will charge your phone when you’re not near an outlet.  That’s pretty cool.

It was a great morning to be able to spend such quality time with them.  If you want to learn more about them just click on their names above and I”ve linked to their websites.  You should also follow them on Twitter.

Gary Vaynerchuk makes his living as a wine reviewer.  He bucks the traditional wine lingo and puts his tastings in very common everyday language.  But he’s also known for his social media marketing skills. It his dedication to social media that turned his life around and made him what he is today.  He just signed a book deal (said to be 7-figures) to write 10-books!  His first one comes out in mid-October entitled “Crush It”. And in true social media style, he uses Facebook to promote it.

Gary was at Walt Disney World Resort for the opening of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival.   I was fortunate to be able to hear Gary speak on social media.  I felt so inspired by his enthusiasm, his humor, his passion for social media.  He gets it and sincerely wants to see the rest of the world “get it”.  And to put icing on the cake – he’s a super nice guy in person. What you see is what you get with him. He’s awesome.

An enlightening moment was when Gary made the observation that the internet is only 14-years old – “it hasn’t even had sex yet.”   Now that’s funny!

Gary also believes that one day Facebook will be your identity, if not already. Facebook has nearly 400 million users and the day is soon coming when everyone will have a Facebook page. He thinks FB will become your new digital wallet.

 Social media is all about engaging in conversation with those that are talking about you or with those people whom you have similar interests.  The media world is changing rapidly and we’re probably seeing right now the biggest evolution in the media world than ever before. With technology constantly changing and getting better and better, we’re going to soon be a very digital society with applications that can think better for us and think ahead of us.

I learned so much from hearing Gary Vaynerchuk speak.  He’s inspiring – he’s contagious. And – he’s funny.

Good luck everyone!