On March 2nd, I got to cross one of my 30-before-30 goals off of my list: I met a handful of my BAM girls!
I flew down to Columbus, Ohio to take in the Arnold Classic 2013 expo. I was greeted at the airport by two of my favourite people whom I had never met in person, Jill and Shannon. From the very first second, these girls were a RIOT! Once we finally made our way out of the airport (which took about 30 minutes, even with "you can't miss it" directions), we got to the hotel and had our first ever slumber party. Too many jokes to even begin to explain our evening here...
First thing Saturday morning, we were up and taking advantage of the hotel breakfast buffet - scrambled eggs and oatmeal for all - and then off to the Convention Centre for the main event. Ok, so it wasn't really the main event, it was the expo, but for our purposes it was EVERYTHING - meeting the rest of our girls (Rachel, Cari & Megghan), getting some face time with our mutual idol, Jamie Eason, and really just taking in the whole experience.
Once we found our parking lot (Shannon and Jill are TERRIBLE with directions! lol), we said a quick hello to Rachel at the bodybuilding.com booth, but they were VERY busy, so we decided to do a tour after a quick hug. We struggled to get around - it was insanely busy! - but eventually made it to the back of the convention hall, where some of the amateur competitions were going on. WOW were these girls amazing! First it was the amateur figure competitors...
...and then the amateur bikini competitors. WOW. Some of these girls had far more muscle than I expected for bikini!
We rounded up the crew and got in line to meet Jamie Eason. She's about 5 months pregnant, and totally adorable. One of the girls had made an extra "Beauty and Muscle" shirt for Jamie, since she was the one who brought us all together in the first place. She was so gracious and kind, and tried to take as much time with each of us as she could, despite the guys running the booth rushing everyone through (this girl is in demand! Everyone wanted to see her!) What an absolute pleasure!
The rest of the day was spent navigating the other booths at the expo. I put on a clinic at the Fat Gripz booth (HA! Deadlifted 205 without the Fat Gripz no problem, but forget it with them! I need to get a set!)
Also got to meet the lovely Amanda Adams of Oh Yeah! and she complimented me on my hair. Cari got a more generic autograph, but we figure that's because it was obvious that she had no idea who Amanda was. LOL.
The Vitamin Shoppe had a cool photo-op set up, so of course we got in on that action
And we did the same at the GNC booth!
We hit up North Market for some yummy lunch
And had Mexican for our 'family' dinner.
I caught a ride with the bb.com crew to an after party that night, and danced the night away at MegaBash, where I met the guys from PrOATein - go figure, I go to Ohio, and end up partying with people from Toronto!
A quick 20 minute nap, and I was off to the airport to head home. It all went so quickly, and I wish I could have had more time with my girls! We all agreed that next year, we're doing the Sunday - Saturday was INSANE, and there were way more freebies given out on Sunday according to Rachel who was there the whole time.
I can't want to do it all again next year, and I know I'll see my girls again before that!
Mandy
xo
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