Contributor Gathering for Junk Market Gals - Part 1

Sue owner of Junk Market Style was definitely the hostess with the mostess. Thank you Sue!!!

It was decided a few months back that as contributors on the Junk Market site we would have a contributor gathering in Minnesota coinciding with the Oronoco Gold Rush Days, so that we could meet one another in person, and have some hang time while searching out junk treasures. Let the plans begin.

Two of our fearless contributors, Kathy and Candy, from Ohio decided to join the Minnesota troops and thus their venture began. And do I mean adventure. They were what you call good campers and good sports. They were wonderful. Kathy and Candy met up for the first time in Ohio, and left as strangers for a 14 hour journey by car together to meet us Minnesotans. This was their first Minnesota experience, and we tried to show them a good time. I believe I can say they are fast friends now, and will be having a few more junking trips together in their future. They arrived in the evening on Wednesday and the two of them along with Sue, Amy & Ron and myself hooted and hollered until 4:00 a.m. It was a blast and the taco bar Sue provided was outstanding. We all had a sleepover at Sue's and it was a blast.

Ron and Amy at their booth in Oronoco

Amy is also a contributor on the site and was signed up to be a vendor at Oronoco Flea Market, so we spent Wednesday night hanging out with them and than again most of Saturday hanging with them too. Ron turned out to be quite a hoot, and I believe we all have adopted him as our Junk Brother, as we have Amy as our Junk Sister. They are a fabulous team and Amy was also the hostess of the First Annual Blogger Party that was held in conjunction with the Ornonco event. More on that later. You can visited Amy's blog at http://junkologie.blogspot.com/ as there is and will continue to be more photos and information about this event on her site as well.

"The French Flea" shop in Anoka

Gretchen, Kathy, Sue, Lanette, Candy at "The French Flea"

Thursday came quickly with only 2 hours of sleep under my belt, or rather a cat nap and I was driving back from Sue's to my house to get ready to work the day at "The French Flea" shop. It was super busy and around noon the gals came in (they slept a bit, which was well deserved) to see what our shop was all about. They each found a few treasures and than we were off to Lanette's for a wonderful lunch and tour of her home. I think the gals from Ohio thoroughly enjoyed seeing Lanette's house after all the tantalizing photos they've seen this past year of her home. Sue then went off to Hunt & Gather downtown Minneapolis to show them one of her favorite Minnesota haunts. I went back to work at the shop, and Lanette cleaned up lunch and packed. The plan was to meet back at Sue's to go on a pontoon ride on Lake Minnetonka that evening and afterwards dinner.

Sunset Pontoon Ride on Lake Minnetonka

Kimberly was skipper and a fine hostess on the pontoon ride. Thanks for your arrangements.

Lisa, Kimberly's mother in law was our Captain. Her driving abilities are quite impressive and she's a sweet lady to boot. Thanks Lisa for sharing your evening and pontoon with us crazy gals.

Gretchen, Kimberly, Lanette, Kathy, Candy, and Sue in front

It was a beautiful evening and a nice drive over to the dinner destination.

The Ohio gals are probably laughing once again at us Minnesotans! We had so much fun!

Sue and Kathy long lost Junk Sisters.

Lanette's daughter, Beca on the pontoon ride.

By the time we arrived to "Lord Fletchers" the sun was setting.

The pontoon is getting tied up to the docks provided by the restaurant.

The gals are departing the docks and heading to dinner.

Lanette and Beca try to figure out what to order, while Sue and Lisa chat with friends they ran into at the dinner site. Lord Fletchers is a restaurant on Lake Minnetonka and dining can be either indoors or outdoors overlooking the water. We of course chose outdoors. Most of us had walleye sandwiches and really enjoyed the atmosphere, that is until . . . . . .

Lo and behold, two table lengths over from our table appeared these little guys. One of them is in the garbage and the other is in the high chair trying to jump in. These little critters scared a few women at first, but Sue calmed us all down. Let's put it this way, a few of us screamed like girls. Pretty fun memories!

Captain "Lisa" did a great job navigating our boat back to safety around 10 pm after dining.

We went back to Sue's house for another girlfriend sleepover, and this night we got some shut eye. Lanette says she went to bed at 12, but a few of us were solving the worlds problems until 2 am. Game plan is to wake up by 7 am, leave by 8 am. A house full of ladies, we'll see what happened with that game plan and how well this group of junkers can survive with changes of plans. Junkers are a tough group of people.

Stay tuned for Part 2 coming to your monitor soon . . . . . . . .