Fabulous Fall Creative Challenge Winners

The house is quiet (Shalae and the Brown grandchildren have gone to Savannah for a week--I'll share more about that tomorrow), and I've had a productive day today. One of the things I did was choose the winners for the Fabulous Fall Creative Challenge winners--click here to check them out!

November Already. . .

Can you believe it’s November already? It feels like it was summer just last week! But my Thanksgiving decorations are out at home (I’ve posted them here for you), Christmas music is playing on the radio, and my thoughts are turning to my favorite time of the whole year!

Although I’m feeling badly that time flies quite so fast, I am excited about the holidays. Thanksgiving reminds me to count my many blessings—something I try to do year-round, but I love the yearly reminder—and Christmas provides so many opportunities to spend time with my loved ones. And the new year is a great time to start fresh, with new energy, new ideas, new goals.

You can see why I love the holidays, right?

I hope you’re looking forward to the coming weeks as well. . .

Home from Addington

Was our European Convention in the most fabulous setting, or what? I took these photos the first day while we were finishing setting up. Once people started arriving, it got too busy to take photos. Plus, we hired a professional photographer to make sure we had the best photos, so I don’t have any with demonstrators in them. Sorry! But you can certainly get a feel for the incredible venue.

Addington Palace is an 18^th-century palace in Surrey. . . simply stunning. I don’t typically take photos of our event settings, but Addington is a once-in-a-lifetime location, and I just couldn’t resist.

I mean, who would have ever imagined a Paper, Pad & Marker room like this. . . or a Memento Mall in a room like this?

And you probably think I’ve got a thing for ceilings because I took several ceiling shots, but how often do you see ceilings like this—they were incredible!

And since no 18^th-century palace could be big enough for our group, our Main Stage activities were held in the “marque,” a tent-like structure outside. We were worried that it might rain (and it did!), so they created a temporary “hallway to heaven” (that’s what people called it) leading to the marquee. They really bent over backwards to make us feel welcome.

And the palace set the stage for a wonderful event. Of course, it wasn’t without its glitches—no event ever is. In fact, the venue itself presented some challenges—an 18^th-century palace is missing some of the state-of-the-art technology you find in a lot of event facilities these days. And we were certainly cozy, but we had decided on the location quite some time ago, never guessing that we’d more than double in attendance in one year. Woo hoo! There are worse problems, for sure!

So, while we know there’s room for improvement (there always is!), overall we were very pleased! Presenters and presentations were fantastic, training was inspiring, new products were well received. . . the list of positive things was definitely more lengthy than the list of things we will work on! We felt great about the event, and it seemed like the demonstrators all had a good time as well.

My favorite part of this convention, as it is any Stampin’ Up! event, is the wonderful opportunity to spent time with our incredible demonstrators. Wherever I go, whatever country, whatever event, I am simply overwhelmed with gratitude for the incredible people I get to work with. Thank you all, Stampin’ Up! staff and demonstrators, for an amazing time at Addington Palace.

Europe, Here I Come!

I’m heading off to our European convention today. And while I can’t wait to spend some time with our European demonstrators (it’s been WAY too long!), I’m a little sad. Sterling won’t be going with me; the doctor yesterday recommended he not travel with his broken collarbone. I’ll miss him—we haven’t spent a lot of time together lately, and I was looking forward to enjoying his company.

And I know our European demonstrators will miss him too!

On the bright side, hopefully I’ll catch up on lost sleep on the flight over. I didn’t go to bed until the wee, wee hours—those last-minute preparations for convention. Happens every time, even though I promise myself that next time I’ll be on top of things a little better. I can always dream, can’t I?

I probably won’t post again until I’m back. I am planning on sharing a little on Facebook though, so watch for updates there!

A Happy Halloween—and Not-So-Happy Dishwashing—Weekend

We just wrapped up a nice Halloween weekend; it’s always fun to see the grandchildren dressed up in their costumes!

This weekend was a little different than originally planned. Sage had gallbladder surgery on Friday, and then a follow-up procedure on Saturday, so I had Kona and the baby until Saturday afternoon. (Another great opportunity to enjoy my grandchildren—and enjoy the chance to hug them good-bye and send them home, or in this case to their other grandma, about the time I’m remembering how tired you get when you are the mother of young children!)

Later in the evening, the Douglass kids stopped by to show off their costumes. (Most people in Utah went trick-or-treating on Saturday.)

And the Brown kids came trick or treating as well. (It was very cute; they all walked through the house, went out the front door, and then rang the doorbell so they could make it official.)

It was raining cats and dogs outside, which put a little damper on things. We only did a handful of houses before the kids were soaking and cold, so it was a short Halloween night for us. They spent the rest of the evening staring out the window, waiting for neighborhood kids to stop by. We turned on all the lights and made our house as warm and welcoming as possible, but unfortunately, we had very few little visitors.

But that meant we had plenty of leftover candy, which helped the grandchildren feel a little bit better about things. (Of course, like most parents and grandparents, I imagine, we hid much of the Halloween booty away afterwards—way too much sugar!)

As an aside, can I just say how much I MISS MY DISHWASHER! It broke last week and is in the process of getting fixed (waiting for parts), and in the meantime, we are washing dishes by hand. All I can say is that I know we’re spoiled, but I can’t imagine life without a dishwasher! How did—and do! (I realize there are some people who don’t have dishwashers)—people do it!?

Sterling is usually the one who does the dishes, but he went on a ride last week and broke his collarbone—and on the first day too! He was a trooper and stayed for the whole three-day trip, just spent his time at the camp. When he came home on Saturday night, I could tell he was exhausted and in pain, so he’s dodged dishwashing duty for the next little bit.

Of course, I really can’t complain—Shalae’s done them too. And they’re just dishes. But I must admit that I’m secretly glad I’m heading off to the European convention tomorrow. I’m thinking of threatening not to come home until the dishwasher is fixed!