Matt, Tracy, Melanie and Tiffany
After my first mini TravBuddy meet up on 2/26, I'm kinda addicted to the fun group. Then I got a message from Joy (pvtjoy) that Alina (alitoronto) will be in town and then another member Matt (mattrilla) will be coming from U.K. She asked if I want to have another mini meet up. Of course, I can't resist the fun of the meeting. She posted the meet up news on the Travel Forum. Having a few messages with Warren (ocwarren), we decided to have the venue at Rusty's Surf Ranch at Santa Monica Pier because it's easy to spot, has a ocean view and lots of parking spaces around that area.
The excitment builds up every single day when I saw more and more TB members' responses and chatted about that. I thought it was only 4-5 people at the very first beginning.
Joy and Alina
..but turned out total 18 people confirmed to come at the last couple of days! Oh Gosh! It's not a mini...I should say a "biggie"! Suddenly I had a idea to make it more fun...Cookies to our fun TB members! I searched online for the recipes of cookies and had to figure out how to put the TB logo on the cookies. I packed and decorated the cookies the night before and attached a little card with everyone's screen name on each bag of cookies. I feel like a little kid doing a fun project!
I called Joy while I'm on my way to Santa Monica...she told me that they just got there. That's cool! When I got there, I didn't see anyone at the front. The waitress said there's a group at the patio (the back). Here they are...Melanie, Tiffany, Tracy, Alina, Joy gave me a big hug and big smiles.
Melanie and her TB cookies bag!
I sat down and took out the cookie bags. We are so excited to chat and taking pictures. Melanie asked me which is my favorite sushi place/restaurant...haha...we both are foodies! 15 minutes later, Matt showed up and took more pictures. Melanie prepared a pink shirt and had us to sign on it. She presented the award to Matt and that surprised him a bit...in a good way! More and more members arrived...Vinny (vinnd), Dan (rotorhead85), keeweeset (Carole), Sheila35 (Sheila), mizcali (Grace), iheart2travel (Sybil). I was so busy greeting them with the TB cookies, chatting and hugging! Sybil, Melanie, Tracy and I started to talk about food. We even talked about dining out and throwing dinner parties. Then Joy called Warren and code173 (Eli) if they were on the way. They made it through the terrible L.
Matt put on his award t-shirt!
A. traffic! And Dmitrius (Dmitriy) and jenn79 (Jennifer) arrived the last. We all noticed that the parking lots over the Santa Monica Pier will close at around 12 midnight. Furthermore, most of us still want to party. Sheila suggested to go to Ma'kai as the next location. We all parked over the same parking lot at Broadway.
We gathered at the corner of Ma'kai and started dancing and drinking. By the time I checked my watch, it's already 1:15 a.m., It's time to call it a night! I said goodbye to the rest of the group and headed back home.
It was really great to meet such a fun crowd...I'm so sure that I will join the meet up next month, and June as well! Honestly TB meet up is very addicted...in a good way!
