The Day I met The Pioneer Woman

So I am sure some of you have read it yourself or heard me reference The Pioneer Woman before. (Warning if you have never been to her site before you may become addicted like me :) ) I first started reading PW's blog back in the spring of this year. I spent numerous house the first few days reading Black Heels to Tractor wheels it is the story about how she and her husband met and fell in love. She is a great writer and storyteller. I found out yesterday that she will be publishing it as a book and also adding a whole second part and some more details. Plus she is also working on a second cookbook. I purchased her first one The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl and I love it. The price right now at Amazon is $10.75 which is a little cheaper than I purchased it for and much better than the full list price of $27 something that some people were paying at the book signing yesterday.

So yesterday Ree Drummond the Pioneer Woman herself was at the Mall of America. I have known about this for at least two months since I knew for sure I was going to be in Minneaplis. It had been a date I had been waiting for. The book signing was to start at 1. My original plan was to be at the mall at 10 and see what the line situation was first and then possibly look around. While I hit snooze lots. So I ended up not getting to the Mall until 11 and a line had started to form. So I got my wristband and joined the line. The time was 11:07. At around noon I went and got a smoothie and used the washroom this was a good idea since I still didn't realize how long I would be in line for. At 1:02 Ree came out and answered some questions people had. At 1:15 she started signing the books.
See that red dot? That is where I was sitting waiting from 11:00 until 1:15 when the line SLOWLY started to move. (I am not actually in the pic that is when I went to the washroom) So it seems like there are not that many people in front of me but actually there were more than it looks like.

So after waiting in line for 4 hours I got to meet Ree.

This is Ree signing my Mum's cookbook which was a Christmas I mean late birthday present. I wanted to tell my Mum about the day so I made it a late Birthday Present instead of Christmas.

Ree and I talking about if she ever does a version of The Ranchelor (ie. The Bachelor) with Cowboy Josh I would gladly volunteer to be the Canadian contingent for it. :)

Ree and I.

Marlboro Man (ie. Ree's Husband) signing cookbooks also. He signs the back page which is a photo of his butt in chaps.

Marlboro Man and I

So when I was standing in line I thought to myself I am going to ask Ree if she wants a starbucks coffee. Because anyone who reads her blog knows that she LOVES starbucks. So as I get closer to the front I see she has some cold drink from Caribou Coffee. So I think to myself there goes my plan. But when I finally get to the front of the line like while over an hour later I see she has hardly drank any of it. So after we talked about Cowboy Josh and I told her my mum couldn't cook very well (sorry Mum but I was hoping it would encourage her to write something a little more personal in your book) I mentioned how she had a caribou coffee but asked her if she wanted something from Starbucks and after trying to be like "oh no you don't have to do that" she agreed and told me what she would like. She even offered to give me money but I said don't worry about it. So I went and got MM to sign my book and then went and got her the coffee.


I gave it to the guy organizing the event and he gave it to her for me. She then waved at me and mouthed very sincerely "Thank You"

It was a GREAT day.

News coverage of the event