Well, I've actually been back since Sunday night at 12h20am!!! But it took me a few days to catchup with my sleep & everything! There is a 4 hour difference from home & Vegas, so it was hard to get back to our time! We made it back safe & sound, even though we had a few misshaps here & there during our journey, but overall, it was very nice!
I will start by telling you about our Vegas time, WOW! The sights & the amount of people on the streets & the casinos! So much to see, but we couldn't do it all!
Here's a picture of us leaving the Moncton airport on August 1st, at 7am. But JoJo wasn't in the picture with us, cause she was on a different flight, so she was already gone. (She booked later)
Ok, so when we got to Las Vegas' airport, we took a shuttle to the Budget Rent-a-Car to pick-up the van we rented like 2 months ago. Ev & Marsha were the ones who volunteered to do the driving, so they went to the front desk to fill out the papers & then found out the one we reserved wasn't the same one we thought we were getting, so of course, we had to pay extra for this one, so after waiting for them, for about an hour, we did drive out with a van! Yup, nice way to get started, it was about 40 degrees there!
Then Evelyn set-up her GPS out to find the Rio Hotel, it went really well & we were really happy to see that our rooms were very nice & spacious, we had 2 Double beds in both rooms. So we took turns at sleeping alone in a bed! :-) I bunked with Ev & JoJo, and I guess I like cuddling! haha! I'll tell you about that in person, it is pretty funny!
There were 3 outdoor pools at this Hotel & they were so nice, even had some waterfalls, which made us laugh, we took Bo Derreck pictures under the falls! haha! But I won't post them on here, we were far from being Bo! lol But we had a good laugh! I'm just posting a picture of the falls, not us! haha!
I can't get over how many casinos there are just within a 5 minute walk! I didn't spend too much on that, cause I don't know much about those gambling machines, so I was sticking to the penny slots! :-0
The first night in Vegas, we went at the Bellagio to see the Cirque du Soleil, the "O" show, that was FABULOUS!!! They must get a lot of practice to be that good, it was scary at some time, you'd think they will hit the walls or the sides, but no accidents at all! I wish I could've taken pictures, but no cameras were allowed. But for those of you who never seen them, here's the link to a preview of it: Cirque du soleil trailor
And we spent almost a whole day going through just 1 mall! It was called <the fashion show mall>, it was huge! Got some shopping done there, but we didn't even get to see the whole thing! Oh and they actually had a fashion show starting when we were sitting down for a cinnabun & coffee!! yum-yum!!! Evelyn & I decided we were due for a Pedicure, so we drove around to find a spot and we found the Pink Nails salon. We both got a French pedicure, it was nice, but they were slow cause they were short of staff that day! But I enjoyed the comfy pink chairs! heehee!
Check-out my nails!
Before we left for Salt Lake City, we went for supper at The Cheesecake Factory, oh my! Very nice restaurant, when I walked in there, I thought it would cost me an arm & a leg, but to my surprise, it wasn't expensive at all, plus, they had such a big menu, it was like a book! Something for all tastes! I took something with chicken, can't remember the name cause I couldn't even pronounce it! But it was delicious & the cheesecake too! yum-yum-yum!!!!! If you ever drive by one in the states, make sure you stop in for lunch, you won't regret it! Here's a picture of my cheesecake, before I swallowed it!!!!
haha!
We went sight-seeing in the evenings & took lots of pictures (that I didn't get printed yet!) We saw Paris, New York-New York, and a few other spots that I can't remember the names, but everything was so amazing, I couldn't believe I was in Vegas! Oh and we saw lots of wedding chappels, but none of us got married! haha!
Anyhoo, that was our journey in Vegas in a nutshell, now, we had cking, to drive 6 hours to get to Utah! So we figured why not leave 1 day earlier & book a room in the middle of our drive so that we didn't have to wake up so early & rush to Convention. So Ev booked our rooms at this nice Hotel in St-George,
and figured we could do some visiting there too, but you know what? When we got in the van, she puts the address in the GPS, she says OH NO!!! It's only 1- 1/2 hr away!!! But now that it was booked, we said what the heck, let's still go! We drove thru the deserts, that was cool, so many mountains too, so again, more pictures!!!
Oh,, but because we only left Vegas after supper, it was getting dark when we got to St-George, we didn't get to visit this cute little town. But we did go eat at Applebee's. :-)
The next day, we still had to get up early enough to get going because Ev had to be at her make'n'take for 2h30pm, so we packed up the van again (see picture below!) and drove right thru to Salt Lake City, with just a couple of pitstops & got there just in time to check-in at the Marriott's, which was just accross the street from the Convention center, that was pretty nice!
I didn't realize that Salt Lake City was that big, but it was nice & very clean, we did get a chance to drive around one night, we saw some amazing spots. One night, we had supper at PF Changs! That was very good too, plus, being 6 women, we got to taste everyone else's food too, it was like a buffet! lol
Now about Convention!!! WOW!!! The convention is held at Salt Palace convention center, it is huge!!! I was pretty amazed to see how much time & effort Stampin'Up! must have put into this event, so well organised with so many presentations! This is a picture of Shell Gardner, who is SU!'s Co-founder & CEO, she was welcoming all of us 3000 Demonstrators in there!
And this is me, too late to get in a HUGE line-up to get a picture with Shelli, so I got Evelyn to take a picture with Shelli in my background! It was so funny, she told us we were cheaters!!! haha!
This is her posing for 'OUR' camera in between Demos, so I guess she wasn't mad at us for cheating! lol
Oh, and when we got in at Convention, we all got a very nice hand-bag with 4 different stamp sets & a wheel, as a gift! An agenda detailing our schedule for each group, so we knew where to be & at what time! There was no time to go shopping in Salt Lake City during convention though, just learn-learn-learn & have fun!!! Presentations & classes, one after an other!
They introduced us to the Make-a-Bear mascotte, he was so cute! There were people swapping every day, going around asking: "Are you swapping cards??" but I only had time to make 2 different cards & had 100 in total to swap, plus my shoe box cards (50) and my 12 x 12 pages, so I was done on my first day there! I'll know better for next year! I am very happy with all the cards & pages I got in return, can't wait to show them off to you!!! They had displays & lots of displays of cards, scrapbook pages & 3D projects for us to take pictures of, so I should be good for classes for a long time without searching for ideas! Oh and we even had a class to do make'n takes with our new stamp sets! All projects came with instructions too, so that we can turn around & offer these classes to our customers, but we had to be very quick, so Ev advised us to just stamp & punch, and do the rest at home; did I finish them at home yet? Of course not! lol
This is all of us coming out of Convention, when it was all done, we are now heading back out to Vegas for our last night, to catch our flight back home!
Ok, well this was as far as the fun went, I must share our little adventure back to Vegas! Oh man! You see, we had 2 rooms reserved for us at the Fremont Hotel downtown Vegas, they were both reserved & paid for since April, we asked for 2 double beds in each, so because we knew we'd get back late, we called them to advice them we'd be checking in late & they said it was fine.
So we took like 7 hrs I'd say, cause we had to stop for coffee, bathrooms & food at Applebees again! :-) We get there at Midnight, all tired, and we had to empty the van, cause we had lots of stuff in there & didn't wanna take a chance, so we got ALL our luggages out, which took us forever to even pack it in there, we could hardly move during our drive! (6 women who've been shopping in the States, so of course, every single suitcase was heavy!) Anyways, guess what? We got to the front desk to check-in and the guy tells us there's no rooms left!!! Oh, try to imagine the look on our faces & the swearing they got from 6 tired women!!! Yeah, it wasn't pretty!!! haha! He gets the 'On duty' manager trying to accomodate us, but we wanted our friggin' rooms!!!! He is trying to tell us they can call one of the other hotels a few blocks away, to see if they'd be able to get us one! Well we were some mad! There was no way, we were packing all our bags back in that van just to go a few blocks down, we told them they better kick someone out & give us our rooms! haha!
Well magically, like a rabbit out of a hat, 1 room with a King Size bed becomes available! He says someone checked out earlier, like Hello!!! It's friggin midnight, who checks out at that time of night?? But! We kept listening, he tells us we'll have to take this or go at the other one! Oh man, we were mad, 6 of us in that room, with 2 rolling beds! So he asks us to wait about 30 minutes for them to get that room ready, and we could go at their little fast food spot they had there, for a free lunch & drink on the house, well even if we werent really hungry, we did it, just to give them a bill! haha! Oh, but all of a sudden, another room becomes available! I'm telling you, he's a Magician! haha! But even though we had 2 rooms with only 1 King Size bed, we just said the heck with it, let's just get to bed! One of the girls had to leave for the airport at 4am, and us, at 9am, and it was past 2h00 by the time we got settled in, so she didn't get much sleep, if she did at all! Above all of that, we didn't even get non-smoking rooms! So our pillows smelled like cigarette smoke!!!! Grossssss! What a rip-off, so take my word, don't book a room at the Fremont Hotel!!! As you will notice, we didn't take any pictures of this one!
Oh, and on our way to the Budget to return the van in the morning, after going through a slow traffic, we stopped to gas up & what did I notice? I lost my Cell phone at the Hotel!!!! Oh NOOOOOO! I have to return at the friggin Hotel!!! WE called ahead to get them looking for it & the girls dropped me off at the corner of the street, cause there was that detour again, so I was just running to the front desk, and nobody found it, so just as I was getting back in the car, the bellman yells at me to say they wanted me inside! One of the workers had found it! But she took like 10 minutes to come down to us, but anyways, then, we were rushing again thru the traffic, to find out the address in the GPS was still for the Hotel! haha! I can laugh now, but we were some stressed out! We took forever to get there, but it went pretty fast to get out & get on the shuttle, but we were so sure we were gonna be too late to get our boarding passes!!! But nope, the lady said we were just in time!!! Yeah!!! I was coming home!!!
So the flight to Montreal & then to Moncton, were great! I was able to relax again!!! :-) Rocky & the kids came to the airport to pick me up, and I was sooooo happy to see their faces at the gate!!! I couldn't wait to sleep in my own bed again! haha!
So overall, I enjoyed our journey, but next time, I'm just going straight to Salt Lake City, where they hold the Convention!!!! :-))
If you have any comments you'd like to share, please do so, I'd be happy to hear from you, it's been a while!!!!
What an awesome play by play of your trip. Sounds like you had a great time!
Can't wait to see all the new projects you did.
Tracy :-)
Posted by: Tracy | August 20, 2009 at 08:30 AM