Im more than terrible at this...

I know I know I said I would be more reliable at posting - but life just seems to keep getting in my way !!


And since I last posted well wow my life has been so exciting .
Ive now made 3 trips to the USA - -and Im about to take my 4th!!!- I mean how incredible is that !!- I still can hardly believe it myself.
The first trip was so exciting - I finally got to meet some of the DSP gals - Margie and Amanda are incredible people - they work so well together yet are such different personalities - It was great to finally meet up with Kim after all these years of working together .


Working at the CHA and the PMA were just the best experience - It really gives you a different perspective -to actually be out there and meet the customer instead of sitting way down here at the bottom of the world on my behind in front of a computer screen 80 hours a week!!!
I found that I really loved the sales aspect of the trip and so I just had to come back again.
The PMA show was so exciting for a geek like me - and I even paid for my husband to come along which was great. We both loved Las Vegas - its such a fun city!!- and the bonus is we got to see the Grand Canyon which really just is indescribable

My third trip was really different. Firstly I had to contend with changing planes and doing it all on my own - it was a 22 hour flight in total into CHicago - in the middle of a thunderstorm no less!!
I was pretty stressed when I arrived on my own after midnight in the pouring rain - but from then on I had the most wonderful trip !!
Kim and I had a great time demonstrating at the McGills ( our wholesale distributor) stand - and chatting with Tish and John who work for McGills - . We got to meet some wonderful customers too !!!
The benefit of not having our own booth is that we didnt have to work such long hours and we got to have some fun time .
Each day we caught the "L" into Chicago and did some sightseeing - what an wonderful city it is - I would love to go back and have a better look around .

After the CHA was over Margie drove us to her house in Troy Ohio - I got to see some of the Real Mid west American landscape - flat and corn!!!- but really peaceful and pretty too.
Then one of the highlights of this trip was the drive to Newport Kentucky to meet up with some more of my wonderful DSP workmates.
I cant really describe what its like meeting up with people who you know so well but have never met. It was like a dream to finally meet up with Tina and Suzi and Linda - we had the most wonderful lunch in the sun where we just talked and talked like lifelong friends.

We had such a great day - lunch then we took a cruise on a paddle steamer up the Ohio River between Newport and Cincinnati

After that Margie took me to my first ever baseball game - what a hoot that was - my kids were very jealous - We had a great time - I got to try my first soft pretzel there too - so all in all it was a very exciting day!!

The next stop was to Grand Rapids for the GASC where DSP was hosting some classes and laptop crops.
The scheduling of crops till midnight followed by 8am classes really meant very little sleep time but Margie , Samara and I had a super time - we met up with lots of DSP members at the crops - Meeting Sharon, Ann and many others that Ive spoken to in my chats was really another great highlight of my trip
I actually got some scrapping done at the crops too which was a first - many of the pages on this blog were made at the Grand Rapids crops.

Then after the show was over Margie drove me to Joannes back in Naperville - LOVELY suburb - I would love to get back and spend some more time there - sadly I only had half a day before Joanne dropped me at the airport for my long trip home.

Well you would think that I might have got the USA out of my system by now but NO WAY - the opportunity to meet up with yet more DSP members at the crop for Memory Trends in Las Vegas was just TOO much of a temptation.

So Im off again in mid September and Im sooooooooooo excited about it . So many of my Gimme Ladies are coming to the crop and I am organising a photo walk the day before so we can all spend some more time together.
Its going to be so much fun - Kim and I have a couple of days before the crop , then its the show where we will work the booth and then home again - its a quick trip but Im surely going to make the most of it!!!
I will try try to be better at keeping this updated before and after this trip

All the layouts above are made with kits that are available in the DSP store. I hope you enjoy them