convention

I recently had a Great Girls Getaway to Salt Lake City with my friend, Heidi. Heidi has had a tough year dealing with health issues and is living life now. So between us we left 8 children behind and headed out. Along with 6000 other (mostly) women, our destination was the Stampin' Up! convention in SLC. We had peaceful accommodations at my in-laws condo a few blocks away. And were ready to go for 3 days of fun.

The above photo was really taken on the last day, when UPS (don't you love those men in brown that bring you presents and goodies) gave each person a free stamp set. But it gives you a good feel for the setting - big room, a few thousand women, lights, music...

Here Heidi and I are working hard on a few projects, learning new crafting techniques and using some new free stamp sets.

We got lots of new ideas. I made about 170 card fronts (thank you to those who helped color on my last trip) and swapped them with others for new ideas. Here Heidi and I are trading cards. There were also big displays of boards with thousands of cards, scrapbook pages and other things displayed for ideas. And we attended classes and presentations with tons of ideas and projects too.

Stampin' Up! partners with the Ronald McDonald House Charities to donate time and stuff. We attended on meeting to find out more about how to volunteer and couldn't resist getting our photo with Ronald himself. And of course, what would a girls getaway be without dressing as twins one day.

I have never had a vacation quite like this one before. And I'm not sure I ever will again. I must admit, some of it was a little silly, but I'm glad I went. We had fun and I'm working on finding and feeling happiness in my life. I like traveling, being with friends, learning new things and making stuff.