Fox Valley Mall Meet Up

My heart was so full on Saturday.  Erica and I had a meet up at Fox Valley Mall in Aurora in their My Perks room.  It was so cute!!

You can tell in this picture that Erica and I can barely stand to be around each other. 😀  We get along like peas and carrots. 😀

We had a “presale” of the free tickets to let us know the interest.  Would people actually come to Aurora to meet up with us?

Well guess what – they showed up!  In fact we had 207 people attend our two hour event.  We had Leah Chavie there who gave mini facials and lip plumpers.  You need to check out her salon in Chicago – it’s amazing.

Blooming Chicago did a tutorial on flower arrangements.  What a great concept – you can hire them for birthday parties, wedding prep – to learn how to make flower arrangements – so fun!  

Naf Naf Grill provided all the food – falafel, chicken, rice and their amazeball pitas.  They have 4 (soon to be 5!) locations in the city of Chicago and 17 in the suburbs.  Each location makes all their food in house – nothing prepared and brought in – its so fresh!

Heavens Honey provided three types of honey for giveaways – local honey, hot honey and smoked honey – can’t wait to try that out!

Smorgasboard Chicago showed people how to make charcuterie boards – she’s super talented!  If you have an event in Chicago – Liz is your girl!

And Lola and the Boys had a t-shirt making station – that turns out I never got a photo of – but everyone had fun making their own patch shirts – Dan, my Chicago boyfriend (aka Erica’s husband!) manned the shirt making station and he pretty much worked non-stop for 2 1/2 hours – thank you Dan!

My sister and I are online friends with Carla – she FLEW IN FROM ATLANTA to come to this event.  I cannot believe it!  She is just as fun in person as she is online.  It was like meeting an old friend you hadn’t seen in a while.  I’ll be working on an Atlanta meet up in the coming months.  So great meeting you Carla!  And by the way, she’s lost 118 pounds on WW – such an inspiration!

GoWiseUSA donated THREE air fryers that we gave away.   And the mall donated a $100 gift certificate to spend in any of the stores at the mall.

I also had another follower come in from New Hampshire!  So crazy!  I realized we took our picture together on her phone, so hopefully I’ll get a copy of that soon.

It was an amazing day and thank you to everyone who made the trek there – from getting up at 4 a.m. in the morning, or flying in – it seems so surreal to me, but the recurring comment was “Biz, you are so relatable and I feel that we are best friends even though you don’t know me!”  

I love that.  I also love the fact that so many people told me that because of my recipes, they are getting bizzy in their kitchen and that makes me the most happy.  One woman said she has made my skinny pizza dough three nights a week for four months, and is down nearly 35 pounds.   Love.

I will admit I was a bit nervous going into this event, because I’ve never done anything like this before, but I realize that you have to get out of your comfort zone if you want to grow.  😀

And a HUGE thank you to Erica for not only being a great friend in just a few short months, but for taking me under your wing with all the social media stuff – I’ve learned more from you than I ever could on my own, and for that, I will forever be grateful.  Love you!

Happy Monday friends – make it a great day and don’t eat like an asshole.

Love, Biz