Yesterday I willingly woke up at 3:00 a.m. to take a shower and get ready to attend the Disney Social Media Mom’s Celebration “On The Road” at the Crown Plaza Valley Forge in King of Prussia, PA.  Kimberly Markey picked me up at 4:00 a.m. sharp (I must say a positive trait of hers is being punctual!  I wish I could say I was good at that).  I digress… So we hit the road at 4:00 a.m. and head down to Philly.  I was warned by Kim the night before, “don’t talk to me unless I talk to you first!” (sounds like my mom in the morning.  We are not morning people).  However, it was a great ride to the conference despite the early morning hour, the unexpected rain, and the challenge of driving in the dark with Kim’s wipers smearing all over the windshield!  We pulled over in Fairfield to clean off the windshield and continued on our journey.  I always enjoy travelling with her, we never run out of things to talk about.

We arrived at the conference at 7:15 right on schedule!  We checked in at the registration desk and it was so cool to meet people and when I told them which blog I write for they actually recognized my name!  To me that was a big deal.

The celebration started at 8:30 and we had breakfast provided to us.

 

We began with an ice-breaking activity of pin trading.  We were all given a pin and had to go around for 2 minutes and trade our pins with other mom bloggers.  That was a great activity!

Gary Buchanan started us off with news from Disney and the recent contests going on like www.Bethe8thminer.com   To enter visit the website and complete a challenge for each dwarf.

Each week, one aspiring miner will win $500 and a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train trading pin. Our grand prize 8th Miner winner will win a 7-night vacation for four to Walt Disney World® Resort, where you’ll meet the crew and ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!

How can you not try to win $500!  The challenges are fun and simple, go check them out and post your entry to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #8thMinerContest.

Next up was Jenn Fickley-Baker, @DisneyParksJenn, Walt Disney World Social Media Manager, who talked about the Behind the Scenes of running the Disney Parks Blog.  One of the tips she recommended to keep your readers interested is to write a series.  She also shared with us the behind the scenes elements of working in the social media segment of Disney with their editorial calendar and the tools that they use to manage their blog.

After Jenn we had a representative from HP speak about the Solution Side of Motherhood and the products that HP has to offer busy moms to help them when in a pinch for gift ideas by using such tools as AirPrint and Instant Ink.  They discussed the easy touch screen printers that your children can use to print out coloring pages and tools that moms can use to easily send an item from their phone to the printer (via an email address assigned to the printer).  I don’t have a color printer at home, but this sure made me think about what I may invest in if we do decide to get one.

After the HP presentation we had a break.  I will continue my next blog post with what I learned from the speakers after the break!  In the meantime here are some photos from prior to the speakers and some activities and goodies we were given during the morning.