Johnson and Johnson, GM, and Nintendo, Oh My!

The weather was, well... dark when I headed out to DIA at 3:00 in the morning on April 2nd. I was off to New Brunswick, NJ to be a part of Johnson & Johnson's Camp Baby! Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was the folks at J&J were hosting an all expense paid trip to hear about their programs and products in exhange for some viral marketing and consumer feedback via the mommy bloggers of the blogoshpere. In addition, Devra and I had been invited to join them as influential parenting experts in their networking family. Sounded fair enough and, besides, it meant three days of leaving my clothes on the floor, not cooking or cleaning anything, hanging out with a some old friends and meeting a few new ones.

Upon my arrival in Newark, I was greeted at the airport by a lovely gal named Ava (her name is almost as cool as mine). She brought a group of us to our driver who whisked (OK, not really whisked but got us there) us off to the lovely Heldrich Hotel in the Chevy Malibu (I'm pretty sure) provided by GM.

OK, I will do my best to NOT have the rest of this read like a bad commercial.

The first night was an incredible evening of fun with Ted Allen. I'll be honest with ya' - before this, I wouldn't have known this guy if I plowed him down in the lobby on the way to the food. By the end of an evening of wine tasting with him though, we were gabbing away. I mean, any guy who starts a wine tasting by telling us we can't eat the little plates of food we have at our spots yet because they're like your plates at the Passover table, I am definitely going to have a good time partying with.

The next day was filled with informative talks from various people involved with J&J. My personal favorite was learning about InfantSee with Dr. Scott Jens. This is a program supported by J&J which provides a free eye exam for all infants. Since my brother struggled horribly in school until they realized he was near sighted in one eye and far sighted in the other and simply couldn't see what was going on in the world, I think this opportunity is something all parents should take advantage of! As a matter of fact, I have already made arrangements with Dr. Jens to get information about InfantSee into my community. I also loved hearing Bridgette Heller tell us about the many things J&J Baby Care division is involved with and how they strive to implement good health all around the world. One funny thing - about 30 minutes after Dr. Charles Gerba spoke with us about germs, you couldn't find a drop of hot water in the hotel. I think we used it all up frantically trying to remove germs we had gathered from any fomites in the room.

That night we had a fabulous dinner at The Frog and the Peach sponsored by none other than Nintendo - because nothing says fine dining like video games right? We arrived to drinks, hors d'oeuvres, and, of course, Wii. Now, being a Wii virgin, I was quite excited and a bit nervous. The folks from Nintendo were very kind though. They taught me to scuba dive and bowl without laughing at me and we even got to check out a new step game that isn't available to the public yet! Once we worked up our appetites, it was time to eat. The dinner roles were amazing (remember, I live in Colorado) and I joked with the restaurant manager about needing to bring some home. Wouldn't you know it, not 10 minutes later the waitress showed up at my table with a couple of boxes of rolls for me! Now that's service. After dinner, we went back to the hotel (courtesy of GM, of course) and gathered for a virtual camp fire evening.

The next morning we packed up (how sad) and headed to the lobby for a field trip to the J&J campus. The administrative building was quite beautiful and the campus has an on site day care facility as well. While there, we learned some J&J history and gave them some tips for heading into the future.

Then it was time to go home. The J&J folks loaded us up with plenty of goodies to take home and even had sack lunches for us to bring to the airport. They thought of everything!

Overall, I must say it was a wonderful trip and now, more than ever, I believe J&J lives up to its credo and truly is a company full of "good citizens [who] support good works and charities."

Thank you Johnson & Johnson, GM and Nintendo for a wonderful 3 days and for everything you do!