A 10K Celebration

Today was a fabulous day—I got to spend valuable time with almost every single one of our Stampin’ Up! employees, even those working in our international offices, celebrating one of our greatest achievements!

I’ve mentioned it before, but Stampin’ Up! had a “10,000 in 2010” goal this year in the US and a goal of 4,000 new demonstrators internationally, and we met those goals last month! Woo hoo! So today we celebrated in the home office, in our Kanab facility, and in all our international offices.

We started the day with a conference call with everyone in our Europe offices, then we had a home office celebration later in the morning. Next, we (meaning me and other home office representatives) flew to Kanab for an afternoon celebration; we also had a conference call in Kanab with our Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand offices before flying home.

Whew!

You can see it was a day packed full of celebration, including treats and product give-aways! All the celebrations followed pretty much the same format—we celebrated meeting this year’s goal, thanked everyone for their incredible dedication and hard work, and then announced our goals for next year, which continue to focus on recruiting and service levels.

With all this “corporate” celebrating, I want to make sure that everyone knows that we are absolutely aware that we would have never met this goal without our amazing demonstrators. While our employees worked very hard to do all they could on their end to make this goal possible, we know that our demonstrators are where it happens!

In an ideal world, every demonstrator who shared Stampin’ Up! with someone else this year would have joined us for these celebrations, but that isn’t possible. So we did the next best thing—celebrated in honor of our demonstrators and committed ourselves to doing all we can to continue this outstanding success as we move into the future!

TODAY Show Surprises

Should I admit this? I didn’t get out of my pajamas today until after 2 p.m.! And unfortunately, it wasn’t because I was lounging around and taking it easy! We were frantically trying to finish the gifts we are giving the TODAY Show people (about 10 people. . . producers, hosts, hostesses, etc.) whom we will be interacting with on Monday.

Last year we took surprises as well, and we really outdid ourselves! (Click here to see those goody bags.) And we carried these on the plane with us!

This year, we went simpler, smaller, and nonbreakable! And following the TODAY Show producer’s advice, we decided to ship the gifts straight to the TODAY Show office this week, so we didn’t have to be worrying about them the morning of the show. That meant we had to get these in the mail today.

We had the first box finished last week—you can see in the pictures they are simple Kraft paper-mache boxes (with decorated lids) that can be re-used. (We did two versions--one for females and one for males.)

Inside we tucked a bag of made-in-Utah caramels (the BEST caramels in the world, and the ones I used for incentive gifts during my Workshops of a Lifetime) and a stack of cards (the photos never look as good as in real life), along with a personalized tag!

 

Shanna has spent hours and hours doing the duplicating—all I really did today was the packaging. But as usual, I was overly optimistic (smile) about how long it would take to tie everything up (tags, cards, caramels, etc.) and then put it all together perfectly. And so that’s why, when Shanna finally headed off to get everything in the mail, I was still in jammies and starving—I hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet!

I mentioned that all I did today was the packaging, but I also admired the gifts over and over—I love, LOVE these gifts! We also included a mini catalog for each person and an Idea Book & Catalog that they can all share. I hope our TODAY Show friends like these gifts, but even if they don’t, I feel pretty good about them. I would love to receive them!

Maybe our gifts will catch their attention enough that they’ll invite us to come back and stamp! Wouldn’t that be great!?

I’m looking forward to the show on Monday—I have to admit that it’s kind of nice to have one TODAY Show appearance under my belt. I know where I’m going, I know who I’ll be meeting with. . . there’s a level of comfort there because this is a return visit. I’m also looking forward to spending some one-on-one time with Shanna. She loves New York, and it will be fun to do a little shopping and dining (of course) with her!

I’m certain Monday I’ll be nervous, but right now I’m just feeling excited!

Sam's Special Day

Our grandson Sam was baptized today. While I try to be very sensitive when I’m discussing my religion on my blog, I couldn’t let this special day pass without mentioning it—partly to let Sam know how proud we are of him and his choice to be baptized, and partly because any day spent with my family is a day worth mentioning!

 We have a couple of baptism-day traditions in the Gardner family. The boys get their first suit, and I have to say that Sam looked very smart all dressed-up, very grown-up and impressive! I participated in the short program, and I just about burst with pride as I looked out at him, listening so carefully to everything that everyone said!

 

The second tradition is that Sterling and I give each of the grandchildren their own set of scriptures (complete with their name engraved in gold on the covers) when they’re baptized. So it was nice to continue with that tradition and present Sam with his personal set of scriptures, which we hope will be very special to him throughout his life.

After the baptism, we all went out to eat lunch. It was so fun to watch all the cousins sitting together and chatting; even the younger ones were well-behaved.

What a beautiful blessing my family is to me—and sweet days like this are just reminders of how important our loved ones are in our life!

Courage Reins Holiday Open House

Yesterday was our annual Courage Reins Holiday Open House, an opportunity to visit with the students at Courage Reins, serve them yummy doughnuts (and not just any doughnuts—only Krispy Kremes will do!), and give them gifts cards for Christmas.

For those who don’t know, Sterling is heavily involved in Courage Reins, a nonprofit organization that provides horseback riding lessons and therapy for people with disabilities. Although there are a few students who are just learning to ride, most of the students are struggling with some kind of life challenge, and while they may tell you they’re just riding a horse, their parents rave on and on about the ground they’ve gained through horse therapy!

In addition to meeting the new students, I love catching up with those I already know—what a treat to see familiar faces and hear about what is going on. One young man has been battling cancer for three years and also suffers from severe seizures. We chatted with him and his young wife, and I was amazed to learn that they have a service dog—a skilled animal who can sense when he is going to have a seizure and gives him enough of a warning (about 30 minutes) that he can get to a safe place. What a blessing that dog has been to them!

This year for the first time, we handed out simple hand-stamped, handwritten notes with the gift cards; the grandchildren loved writing personal greetings to the students. Even the younger grandchildren who can’t write yet signed their names to notes that their mommies had written. It made the gifts cards even more fun to give—and receive (I hope).

After the open house, we all went home to celebrate Cooper’s 4^th birthday. I won’t write about that;  Shalae wrote about it on her blog, so you can see pictures (along with a fun tag she made) and check out the details by clicking here.

The holiday open house is turning out to be a beautiful event, one that we anticipate every year! It sets a perfect tone for the rest of the season—the atmosphere is festive (Christmas decorations with Christmas music playing in the background) and it’s a great reminder that during the holidays (and all year long, actually), one of the most important things we can do is reach out and serve others.

A New Challenge

I just posted a new challenge--check it out and, if you have time, I'd love to see a submission! Have a great day!