Remember last year when I shared about going on the Sailing with the Scotts HGTV cruise?  It was a blast and I hope they do it again this year.  Well aside from that, I don’t attend many events that I get invited to as a blogger, because they usually require travel and time away from the boys.  However, when there is a local event, I am there like a bear (not sure what that even means).  So this past weekend I attended the Wayfair Tastemaker Awards here in Miami and I had a great time!  It took place in a beautiful, historic South Beach hotel called the SLS Hotel.

We all gathered in the outdoor terrace part of the hotel which was beautiful, as you can see.  The picture does not do it justice.

We sat around, enjoyed drinks and delicious appetizers.  Seriously, the apps were so yummy that they are worth mentioning and even photographing but I forgot to.  There were dates wrapped in bacon, ceviche, gazpacho (I actually don’t like gazpacho but it looked good) and other little morsels of goodness.

I made a lot of new contacts for the blog.  Not really.  I just kept eating the appetizers.

This was the cool bar area.  These bartenders were like out of the Tom Cruise movie, Cocktail.  They would throw the shakers and mix multiple drinks at once.  Kind of impressive.  Of course, they were still not as popular as the guy frying the bacon-wrapped-dates.  That guy won.

They (Wayfair) also had a photo booth set up and a bunch of props for the pictures.  I always do really well in the first picture but then I don’t know what to do for the other 3 shots.  Do I just keep smiling?  I can totally make a funny face as the second shot, but I only have one funny face that I know how to make so that still leaves another 2 pictures.  I inevitably come out with one of the shots talking as I ask the person next to me “what do we do now?”.  Does this happen to you?

You may recognize the picture below from my Instagram.  Here I am with my friend, Diriet Diaz, who is not only a great friend and a sharp dresser, but also happens to be a luxury real estate agent in the Miami area.  Not the best quality photo but it was a good hair day so it made the cut!  😉  It’s always a good hair day for Diriet.

Here are some of the Wayfair peeps, the winning designers and presenters.

Here I am with the super talented designer, Barclay Butera.  He was so sweet and was nice enough to take this picture with me.  Although his choices were limited because my friend already had the camera phone pointed and waiting.  Say cheese!  Seriously, all the designers were incredibly approachable and happy to be celebrating with all of us.

The evening came to a close after finally presenting the winners.  Before giving the awards we were all shown slides from the rooms that were submitted as entries.  They were all so original and with such fresh perspectives.

So we hung out a little longer (that’s me beside the lady in the blue blouse) and then called it a night.  My boys were all home waiting for me and greeted me at the door like I had been gone for 24 hours.

One of the bonuses about blogging has been being a part of these cool communities and being able to go to events that are both fun and inspiring.  The other bonus was not having to make dinner because the husband was holding down the fort.  So thank you Wayfair and thank you husband.  And thank you pizza delivery man.  And thank you bacon wrapped dates.

Feeling grateful –

Maria