Broadening our horizons at Hispanicize and saying goodbye to visitors

Laredo celebrates Easter with bunny piñatas who love walking before the breaking

It’s Passover/Easter holiday weekend and all I can think of is this coming week. I am being sponsored to attend the Hispánicize Conference in Miami, Florida – wooohoooooo! It bills itself as “The Leading Social Media Resource for Hispanic Marketers and Influencers,” which doesn’t sound like a place where your humble hyperlocal Que Fregados blog would fit in but El Partner thought differently and encouraged me to go learn more about blogging and schmooze with brands and fellow bloggers.

It forever amazes me that my hobby blog about Laredo with a strong bent towards Latino themes has readers in unexpected places. Some readers are Laredo natives in other parts of the world, others were piqued by a past post and just kept following and others have a bare-thread tie to Laredo.

Kevin & Linda - new Laredoans and Beverly & Bob - visiting Laredo

I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting a lovely couple from Southern Utah this holiday weekend. Bob and Beverly were RV-ing and visiting family who just moved to Laredo. Beverly has been the reader and is one of the nicest women I have ever met . They are chronicling their RV trip through the eyes of their dog and cat, along for the vacation – so adorable!

We set a lunch meeting at La Posada with a tour of downtown Laredo afterward. I have to give props to La Posada for their delicious lenten menu – yum! The one dish EVERYONE tried was the Lenten dessert, capirotada. It was… oh… so… good! Too bad it is only offered for the limited season. The waiter told us that they used buttery croissants and cajeta. Hijole, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

For a different recipe with non-traditional ingredients, check out Presley’s Pantry (also going to Hispánicize) version:

Now to wait until next year’s Lent season to taste the various recipes of capirotada but I hope I won’t have to wait that long to meet other out of town readers. For sure, I will be meeting all kinds of bloggers to learn more about how they blog. A few bloggers posted their sites on the Hispánicize group so, for sure, I will be looking for the following:

Alexandra of PR Newswire-MultiVu & Fit Latina
Mercedes of BeChicMag.com
Astrid of Latin Blah
Maria de los Angeles of Sex and the Beach
Sili of My Mamihood
Pattie of Living Mi Vida Loca
Amber of Thrifty Ninja
Isabel of At Home in Pleasanton, Ca
Adriana of La Dulce Vida ~ The Sweet Life
Monica of Monica Wants It
Letty of Bella Vida by Letty
Ana of Miami Mommy Savings
Teresa of ChecaLAmovie.net
Divina of DancingHotdogs.com and Trumpeting Media
Marixsa of Mamá Boricua en Brooklyn
Silvina of Latina Communicator
Shirley of Mami Holística y Genial
María (Lennie) of Aprendizaje Divertido
Lynn of webcitygirls//
Helena of PinkGuayoyo.com
Raquel of La Mezcolanza
Leanette of Teach Me 2 Save
Paula of Growing Up Bilingual
Joscelyn of MamiofMultiples.com & Mami Innovative Media
Myrah of Coupon Mamacita & Mamacita La Cuponera
Madelyn of KarmaFree Cooking & KarmaFree Cooking en Español
Zelma of YoSoyMami.com
Karina of Con Sabor a KaFé
Cristina of Una Colombiana en California
Nicole of Design It Girl
Luciana (Uchi) of Latin Food Lovers and Postres About.com
Ezzy of Ezzy Guerrero-Languzzi blog
Margo of Nacho Mama’s Blog
Lina of Fashion FaB Blog
Alex of HispanosEnMiami.com

Even if I don’t, this weekend will leave very nice memories of showing a little bit of how I view Laredo to a nice couple from Southern Utah . Enjoy your travels Bob & Beverly and I will be sure to enjoy my short travels to Hispánicize in Miami this week.

If all goes wrong (which I hope won’t), I will at least have enjoyed El Partner helping me prepare and pack. He did something his macho butt has never done before – he painted my toenails. Awwwwwww…

A peek at last year’s conference: