The truth is I’ve been sitting here trying to put any part of this past weekend into words for about an hour now… It’s nearly impossible. I’m still trying to let it all soak in, and bask in every moment, every friendship made, and every memory engraved in me forever.

To say that this past weekend in Napa with Oakley Women changed me for the rest of my life, would be a gross understatement. My entire perspective on life, my dreams, goals, and desires have taken a 180 degree turn. I am more motivated than ever before to march confidently in the direction of my dreams.

The weekend kicked off bright n early Friday morning with a rude thunder storm. I knew my long day of travel ahead was off to a rocky start. Thankfully while getting ready the storm settled down.

I made it to Chicago without a hitch. Success. There was only a 3 hour layover, and 4 hour flight between me, and the greatest weekend of my life.

This is where day one fell apart. I sat there charging my phone next to my gate and watched as the clouds started rolling in “please just pass. please just pass. please just pass” I was basically chanting in my head. But, I knew in my gut that my flight was going to be delayed… What I wasn’t expecting, was that it would be delayed over 3 hours…. The incoming flight wasn’t able to land due to the lightening, so they had to divert to Milwaukee and wait for the storm to pass. There was no chance I was making it to the cocktail party and meet n greet. I was just crossing my fingers that I’d make it in time for the opening ceremonies/welcome dinner.

A few stressful hours later & we were on our way to Oakland, finally. I landed at OAK with just enough time to grab my suitcase from baggage claim, boogie our way up to Napa just in time for dinner. *PHEW*

Welcome to Paradise

I checked in, then had the fun task of trying to locate my room through the mazes going along this giant, gorgeous resort and golf course. Finally I found my room, and much to my surprise we all had our own condo to ourselves. I didn’t have time to take it all in, I WAS LATE! I got ready the fastest I have in my entire life, I’m pretty sure & sprinted in my flip flops back up to the main mansion for dinner.

My timing could not have been more perfect, they had just sat down for dinner after the cocktail party. Literally moments after I sat down & started sipping my glass of wine, the  fun began. We were introduced to the brand and what this whole weekend was about.

I don’t know about everyone else, but during the course of the presentation, the speeches, and the fashion show – I realized just how big this event was going to be. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I tried looking up the 2011 blog posts as much as I could – but I still had no idea how HUGE this was going to be. I’m talking professional athletes like Jenny Fletcher (professional triathlete), Deena Kastor (A HUGE RUNNING IDOL OF MINE <3 ) Erica Hosseini (Pro surfer) as well as the hugely loved trainers from Tone It Up, Karena and Katrina, writers and editors from Self Magazine, Fitness Magazine… Reps from Garmin, Toyota, Trek Bikes…

It became very apparent that what was in store for us, was going to be epic – and a truly once in a lifetime weekend.

2012 Oakley Ambassadors
Page, Carly, Myself, Maria, AJ, Cari, Fitz, Christine, Natalia, and Eva

We all clicked instantly. The people behind the scenes of the Perform Beautifully competition did an amazing job. All 10 of us women came from different walks of life. We don’t all have the hugest blog following, we’re not all pros, but we all had a few things in common: an infectious love for both life and fitness. We all hit it off instantly. I’ve been saying it since we left Monday — We arrived as strangers, and parted as family. (There’s no good-byes, ladies… Just see ya later! (and hopefully soon))

As much as we were all eating up each other’s company and stories — we were all DYING to get back to our room to check out the gear we got to test out over the weekend.

Spoiler Alert: I SQUEALED OUTLOUD BECAUSE IT WAS SO AMAZINGLY UNREAL!

WHAAAAAAT?!

(A lot of you probably remember a few weeks ago when I nearly bought a Garmin Forerunner 210… Glad I decided to wait)

It was time to get some beauty sleep… I knew it was the only night over the weekend I had any shot of getting to bed at a reasonable hour…. Not to mention it was rounding in on 3am back home in Maryland.

Stay tuned tomorrow for DAY 2!

& in the mean time, check out this AMAZING video recap the amazing photographer & videographer put together. A huge hug and thank you to them for doing some serious work & pumping that baby out by the time we got to dinner Sunday evening.