I'm a cook that got to meet The Pioneer Woman!

So as most of you know Ree Drummond (aka The Pioneer Woman; aka PW; aka P-Dub) wrote a cookbook. Let me rephrase that she wrote a BEAUTIFUL cookbook. Oh! This cookbook is heaven! The photos are beautiful, the recipes delicious and the cover is divine! (OK, so I like the cover because it is orange and that means I can display it in my kitchen, and it won't look out of place!) And since most authors take a book tour, Ree did too. Or as she calls it a "book trip". On November 4th she was here in SLC! I was so excited she decided to stop here! We are not in any way shape or form a big city like Chicago or LA, but as shown by the number of fans that came out to see her, we loves us some PW! Let me back up here...a few friends and I decided to go out to The King's English Bookstore to see her and have her sign our cookbooks. We planned for a little bit, and then Traci came up with the idea to make aprons with a cute vintage cowgirl printed on it, so we could maybe have Ree sign them and it might make us stand out a bit. We planned for a little bit more, chose our aprons and had one made for PW, then got out names embroidered on them (and of course Ree's on her's along with "SLC loves Pioneer Woman"). On the day of the book signing, Traci picked me up (in my carefully picked out "book signing outfit") and we headed to Sugarhouse. We were meeting Katie and her friend Michelle, and hoping Barbi would be able to come out with us too (Barbi wussed out, but I don't blame her, and Traci's friend Annie had a sick baby, so she couldn't make it). As Traci and I were on our way Katie texted me telling us to hurry, because there were tons of people, and more kept showing up! Now I know not all of you have been to The King's English but it is a quaint bookstore amidst a few shops along 15th and 15th smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood in SLC. The first thing I thought (and texted to Katie) was "SHIT!" Thinking we were not going to be able to make it to see Ree. We pulled up and parked (up a hill, and I was wearing my new "hot" boots) at about 5:40ish. We rushed down the hill and got in line, even before seeing where Katie and Michelle were. We were so lucky! We hadn't been in line long when a lady came by and handed us a "ticket" to the book signing. Traci and I were "F". Now at the time I didn't know what that meant, but I eventually found out that there were 20 of each letter, so that meant we were in the 5th group of 20 people to be able to go in and meet Ree. (Katie had "C" and Michelle had "D" lucky bitches!) The letters went to up "Q". And there were more people that didn't get tickets that waited for after the people with tickets had taken their turn. Seriously, we think there were 500+ people there to meet Ree and get their books signed. WOW! We stood in line (after buying our books from the local bookstore) for about 45 minutes. They opened the gallery (cute art gallery where Ree spoke) at 6:30 and we were so lucky that Katie and Michelle saved us seats or we would have been standing like 300 other people that didn't get seats (THANKS!) Ree was slated to speak at 7:00, so we waited in the midst of the excited crowd,taking pictures, and browsing the cookbook. The "roadies" tested the microphone, the bookstore representative (at least I THINK that's who she was) said a few words, a hush fell over the crowd (well, as much of a hush that would happen in 500 people) and.... TO BE CONTINUED! (Aww..it's late, and I'm still tired, and well, this post has been long. And I need something to write about tomorrow, dontcha know?)