Founder’s Circle 2010 Third Day

So Friday morning, I ate breakfast down in the Courtyard Cafe so that I didn't have to break anymore of Tiffany's rules…she knows I am giving her a hard time. Cause she also knows she made me feel so comfortable that I know it helped me enjoy my trip and get to know so many people.

Stampin' Up! had scheduled a half day regional just for us to attend so we headed on over to the Convention center on the bus for that.

Here's some of the crowds, and note to self, make sure to get more cameras of me and people, I think I am on other people's cameras, as I have snagged some pictures off the internet, but I need to be better about saying "hey can you take one on my camera too". Not to the point where there are tons of cameras taking the same picture, but you know what I mean.

We got the Day of Gratitude stamp set and made some fun make n takes, ok let me re-word that, we got the Day of Gratitude stamp set, and I took my make n take packet and walked around chatted and took pictures, I still have not made my cards, bad I know.

Stampin' Up! announced they would be having a special, if you join my Di's Country INKers team before October 3, you will get this awesome set "Eat Chocolate" for free with your kit, it won't even be available until January…cool eh? That also includes the Greenhouse Gala tote too.  If you want more information, please let me know.  I would love to have you join my team.

 We played a fun game where we had to guess what these words say, Mark Jessen came up with them, he's a fun guy and I got to work with him last year when I was one of the Artisan Award winners. Can you guess what this says? It's one of my favorite tools to use.  It holds water. You paint with it.  Right, it says Aqua Painter.

How about this one?

This one took me a while to figure out, I was too busy snapping pictures and I could not hear what people were yelling out, so after looking at it for 5 minutes tonight I finally got it.  Did you? It's a new core color.  Yep, Early Espresso.  What a fun game eh?  There were lots more but I just showed you a couple.

We had some awesome Workshop Wows and I learned some fun new things.  After the regional was over we got back on our bus and headed back to the hotel, or some people were calling it the ranch. We ate lunch and it was this amazing pasta buffet, I ate kinda quick cause Catherine Pooler told me to hurry up, they asked me to go shopping with them and they were leaving pronto, and I wanted to hang out with those cute popular chicks so I ate quick…but then look what they brought over…

…a warm brownie in a skillet with ice cream. I only ate about three bites cause it was rich.

Here's Joanna and I. She is so cute, and she was freaking us out, the first time we met her, her hair was straight like this, then the next day it was all wavy and we almost didn't recognize her.

So then Mandy and I headed to the outlet mall in the van with, I hope I don't forget anyone…cause I am gonna drop names here…ha!

Catherine Pooler, Jo Golden, Jen Jacobsen, Jodi Reinhert, Dena Rekow, Josee Smuck – I think that was it.  So we headed to the outlet mall, and some of the girls got jeans.  Then we headed to the real mall the girls wanted to go to Buckle.  Catherine and a few of the other girls go there every year.  So I will admit I felt like an old woman there, and like I was the college dorm Mum.  The sales girl doted all over the girls and did not even give me a look. So I stood around like a wart on a toad and finally I looked at some jeans.  I asked the sales girl a question about them, and finally I think she noticed me. It was so much fun trying on jeans and shirts with the girls, they were a blast, and the sales girl would bring you stuff to try on, beats Walmart…ha!  I totally enjoyed the experience cause basically I have been wearing the wrong size jean.  I tried on the size I usually wear and I said well they are all loose in the back, you know you sit down and the back sticks out and you could carry your wallet back there, and I am constantly hiking them up, so the girl said try on this smaller size and that did it too, so then she said try on something smaller, and I am like no way.  So the next jean fit much better they did not do that back thing but they were too tight around my girly front area and I like to leave something to the imagination, so she brought me ones that were higher in the waist and they were perfect, even a great length for my boots. Most of the girls were getting the skinny leg bottoms, but I prefer boot cut.  So I felt a bit younger, but not so young as people will think look at that old chick trying to wear young clothes, so I picked up a couple shirts, and we all agreed that we would wear our new duds to our final dinner.

  Here's me and one of the sales girls making my purchase.

Then we headed back to the hotel and some of us worked on our make n takes, these are a couple of my new buds, Tiffany and my newest friend Meg Daves. What a doll, I can hardly wait to see her again in Nashville.

Shelli and Shalae came in and we all visited, so we took another opportunity to get our picture taken with Shelli, here I am with Shelli and Tiffany. Pam Morgan took this picture of us. Who is Pam? Well here she is…

 …she has to be one of the nicest people that work at Stampin' Up! I mean they are all nice, but the first time I met Pam for real was on our first cruise to Alaska, and she always knows who I am, and will comment about Arizona, so she even knows where I live.  I guess I like that bit of ego stroking, I mean come on everyone does right? I remember at Leadership in Phoenix, this year, she asked me if I just skateboarded over…what a gem.

So while we were chatting with Shelli, we were talking about dinner as that night was a free night for supper. We said we were going to go to Five Guys hamburgers as we had seen it on the way back from the convention center and it was walking distance. So we all decided to meet at 6:30 in the lobby.  The other girls were surprised when me met them and said that Shelli would be joining us. So Shelli, Shalae, and Sara and all us gals walked over to the hamburger place. It was so delicious and the fries were amazing. They have this scrumptious french fry sauce…yum! We headed back after our dinner cause tonight was the Sock Hop Swap & Share.

  We got all dolled up in our best pajamas and hung out.

It was funny to see some girls with the same pajamas on.  I had picked up a new pair before I left and had not washed them cause I got them the day before, so when I put them on the first time, I thought I was gonna scratch my neck off the lace was so itchy.

Look how cute Mandy Grant and Jodi Reinert are.

When we walked in we were handed a popcorn box and a stapled booklet of all sorts of business tips from everyone there that had a tip to give.  I was like oh yum I love popcorn, but then I opened it up and it was a beautiful note book and a pen.

They did have popcorn machines there and I was so tempted to go get some but I was so full after dinner, in fact I weighed myself yesterday and I am almost the weight I started at in July to LOOSE!!! OMG!!!! That is so not good!

Here's Mandy and I. She is so cute, she had ran into Macy's I think she said at the mall and these pajamas were hanging there, and they almost looked like the candelabra in the Dark & Dreary set.

Here's Jodi and I, she is so sweet.  How bad am I that I was hanging out shopping with Jodi and did not even realize she was one of the Advisory Board members. Bad Di.

So we sat down and listened to some fun tips. Taking notes with our nice new pen. I don't want to ruin my book with my horrible writing so I have not wrote in it yet, I think I will save it for the Alaska trip and take notes every night, maybe by then I will have a laptop but I don't think you have internet service on the ship right? I don't know. Oh well I am just typing and thinking out loud. That is called multi-tasking!

Another sweetie I got to meet better was Sandi Rule, I can't even believe she knows my name, but we got our picture taken together, and she even reads my blog. So sending you a big Hi Sandi!!! She is so sweet, we were giving Tiffany a hard time and telling her we would crop her out of the picture, as Sandi and I wanted an "alone" picture…ha! See Tiffany, I didn't! Big smooches to you both!

Then it was time for the swap, I had no idea how this was gonna go, I mean I have only seen pictures and I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to hold these 5 bags of cards and the bag that the swaps I was getting was going into too.  

 Colleen Magness stood beside me and she explained how to do it. We lucked out and we were at the end of the line, so we got to stand most of the time, so by the time I actually had to move I might have had one gallon ziplock left of cards so it went totally fine.  Colleen and I were pretending to be flight attendants, so as someone swapped with us we would say "thank you, bye bye!" I think people thought we were nuts.  We only did it a few times, but when we got to swap with each other, you're darn tootin' we said it to each other.

Here they come around the bend. This had to be one of the main highlights of my trip, and you should see the masterpieces I came home with…wow!  I will share some while I am at my BFF Tracy's house, as I know I won't have time to be stamping stuff prior to leaving, I have classes right up till I leave, so needless to say my household is a little crazy right now. In fact I should be getting my totes ready for my class tomorrow! Ha!

After we were done we went and hung out for a little bit in the gathering place it was about midnight so we didn't stay long.  This is one of the funnest girls I met, her name is France Martin, but we all call her Frenchie, and she is french and has the cutest axxent, and it is liked chopped engleesh, but you totally know what she is saying and you want to talk just like her.  We wanted our picture taken together, and Jane Wike did amazing as the photographer.

Look how cute Jane is with her Owl pajamas, I saw at least three people with these on…adorable, and me in my plain gray itchy necked ones. Next year, if I earn Founder's I'll know better.

Then it was time to go to bed, or at least our room I mean the pillow gift had to be there by now right? I mean it was the next day by now.  So when I got to my room this was on the bed.  Pizza! Well that was a change, every meal that SU! did not give us I ate a hamburger and fries, for Iggy's that is what I had and then the Five Guys burger too.  I can eat fries for every meal so I was cool with it, but that just seemed funny to me.

So what was inside the pizza box?

It was a pink bowling shirt!

The little note said we would need our shirt, our team and our team scarf for the Fabulous Final Event. Now guess what was going through my head?  But I just bought the cutest dang outfit for the Fabulous Final Event! Cripes!  OK, so then I went over to Tiffany's room she was right next door, and hung out with Ann Clemmer and her downline Karen Johnson, and we gabbed and laughed and looked at our swaps, and tried to figure out. "Would we really be bowling tomorrow?". So after a while I looked at the clock and I was like "OMG! it was 2am", so we all said good night and we went to bed.

My bed was super comfortable and there were like 6 pillows on each bed, it took me about 4 tries each night to get the right dang pillow to sleep on, I felt like Goldilocks, this was too hard, this was too soft, this one was just right!

So I hope you enjoyed today's Founder's Circle story, I have to get off here, and pack my totes for my class tomorrow, oops! should have done that before I sat down to do this. Oh well.

Have an amazing Thursday and thanks for stopping in!