Just as I share some of my personal thoughts and views, I invite you to share yours. All I ask is that you keep your comments appropriate. I won’t feel badly about removing comments that are offensive. That doesn’t mean you can’t be honest—I want honest feedback—but I like to fill my life with positive people and positive things. I guess that means that if you have to say something negative, say it nicely!
More than anything, I want you to leave here feeling inspired and valued—and like we've had a nice visit!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 09:24AM Just a quick note to let you know I posted the winners to the All Things New Creative Challenge. (Click here to check the winners out.) I enjoyed checking out all the great ideas, and thank you all for sharing your creativity!
Sunday, August 8, 2010 at 09:21PM 
Yesterday was a big day for Olivia, our granddaughter who recently turned eight years old. Olivia was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and family from northern and southern Utah traveled to be with her on her very special day.
Megan and Nate had planned for all of us to gather afterward for a potluck lunch in the park and let the little ones run and play in the sun, but the weather didn’t cooperate. The wind blew and the rain fell, so we all enjoyed a cozy little lunch at the church instead. It was nice to visit with extended family we hadn’t seen for awhile, and it’s always fun to watch the cousins play together!
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 12:42PM We’ve had our annual Gardner Girls’ Gathering (GGG) the past few days—started Monday and we’ll be ending today. It’s shorter than normal, but so much is going on that we had to take what we could get!
A GGG wouldn’t be a GGG without shopping and food (mostly chocolate!), so we started on Monday with both. We had lunch at a mall in Salt Lake City, then shopped for make-up and shoes. And because when we’re together we get a little silly, we saw an empty store window and couldn’t resist the chance to pretend to be mannequins for a few short moments.
We checked into a Park City hotel in the afternoon, just as the power went out. We sat around in our room for an hour or so, getting progressively hotter and hotter! While it was uncomfortable for most of us, our pregnant Mama Sage started to feel sick, so we stuck her inside the fridge for a few minutes, which probably didn’t help much but provided some more silly entertainment!
Finally, we decided to just go to dinner, hoping that power would be back on when we came back.
We found out that Megan had never had Thai food, and there happened to be a great Thai restaurant nearby, so we took it upon ourselves to introduce Megan to that yummy, very distinct cuisine. She loved it. But we stuck with chocolate for dessert—we ordered one molten lava cake but it was way too tiny, so we had to order a second!
Yesterday was much more laidback. We slept in, read a little, worked on a few projects (usually I bring a craft, but this year I ran out of time, so everyone knew it was BYOP—Bring Your Own Project), enjoyed a massage, ate ice cream, and mostly visited.
That’s really what the GGG is all about—sharing what’s going in our lives, catching up and connecting in a way that we aren’t able to do when we’re all living our everyday lives (work, husbands, kids, school, church, etc.). We all sat around talking, and when one of us had to go to the restroom, we had to stop talking so that nobody missed out! And even though at night we were fading, we didn’t want to stop talking then either! We just love being together and enjoying that special bond that mothers and daughters share!
This morning we’ll head home, with a stop for lunch (and a chocolate dessert!). After all, what better way to wrap up a GGG than with delicious food and a little bit more conversation!
Monday, August 2, 2010 at 06:55AM As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this past week was pretty full of work and meetings. However, we have had a house guest the past week as well.
Beth, a friend of Shalae and Jon’s from Savannah, has spent the week with us, and it’s been delightful to get to know her better. I would have liked to spend a bit more time with her, but I had to settle for snippets of time here and there until this weekend, when we finally got to STAMP!
Yes, you heard me. On Saturday, we spent several hours in sheer heaven, stamping to our little hearts’ content! I can’t remember the last time I stamped for the pure joy of stamping! It seems I’m usually stamping with a purpose in mind—either a regional project or an onstage demonstration for convention or leadership, or a project with a deadline of some sort.
In addition to stamping, I got to sleep in, go to yoga (my favorite form of exercise, which I don’t participate in nearly as often I’d like because my schedule is too full!), and just relax all day on Saturday. We ended Saturday with a neighborhood gathering, which was nice as well.
Sunday was another very relaxing day. We went to church, had a quiet dinner, and bid farewell to Beth. It was a great weekend, one that I’ve been looking forward to (and needed) for weeks!
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 09:14PM Okay, I was looking through my convention photos and found these few stragglers that I thought were cute and forgot to include them in my original convention post.
We took a couple of these while we were working on one of the Definitely Decorative rooms in the Demonstrator Resource Center. (You’ll notice who’s doing the work while the girls are sitting and watching.)
The other photo was taken during the Flower Power party. Groovy huh? Can you tell which handsome guy is Sterling?
The other thing I want to do is make a quick clarification.
My closing remarks in the last general session talked about change, and the fact that we will be making changes at Stampin’ Up! in the coming weeks and months. We’re working hard to identify exactly what those changes will be—and we’ll share those changes with you as we finalize them.
I’m very excited about our future and what’s in store, and I hope that my excitement came across when I spoke. I knew that my remarks might cause people to start speculating about exactly what changes would be in store, and I tried to anticipate what kind of rumors might start flying. One rumor I didn’t anticipate AT ALL was that I might be retiring! That is a change that I would definitely NOT be excited about, so I thought I’d at least put that one to rest!
You’re stuck with me for a long time, that’s all I can say! Stampin’ Up! is such a big part of my life—along with my family, of course—and I can’t imagine my life without all of you! So, you can stop wondering about that change.
And as for the other rumors that are flying. . . .well, all I can say is stick around! My time right now is almost completely devoted to finalizing the vision and direction for the future, and you’ll know more soon!