This past August my upline Kristen Bryant hosted an incredible retreat weekend in her amazing house in MN, and Kim Vale gave me a CD chock full of pictures from it when I saw her last Sunday. The whole weekend was awesome, start to finish (except for the tornado, natch). Above is a field of sunflowers we saw on the way there. Kristen's family has been blessed with this gorgeous house, and believe it or not, all of us fit in there with room to spare! Her family went camping (sorry about the weather, guys) and we just took over the entire house. I got to sleep in Abigail's princess bed. I was so lucky!
This is just a teeny part of her stamp room. I really like the counter-height tables, and the magnetic boards. File that away under "ideas for if I ever get a stamp room bigger than my table." She also has a little sink so she can do cleanup without every having to leave the room. And of course, snazzy Decor Elements up on the walls!
I love how she has her promotion/sales/Founder's Circle certificates up on her wall. Kristen is my hero! Maybe someday I will have that many to display. And that walk-in closet on the left there? Stamp sets from floor to ceiling, and paper racks as tall as I am! Heaven!
You can never have enough space, however, so we spread out of Kristen's stamp room and all over her dining room, living room and the big kitchen bar. There was stampy goodness going on literally all over the main floor! But we all helped her clean the place spic and span right before we finally took off.
This is me with two of my partners in crime, I mean, my driving buddies Kim and Patti. We had borrowed a van for the trip and it came with this bobble-headed fuzzy moose, which, in our junk-food induced sugar comas, we promptly named "Bob." Get it? I know, it's baaaaaddd… anyway, Bob became our constant companion that weekend and got his photo taken in a variety of funny situations. Here he is eating the homemade cream puffs & ganache that Amanda whipped up on Sunday morning:
Bob was a good boy and only ate his body weight in cream puffs, unlike ME. And the cream puffs appeared on the scene after the cheesecake, orange twists and caramel brownies had already been consumed! It's wonder I didn't turn diabetic on the spot. But we were extremely productive, running on that diet–look at everything we got done that weekend!
Everyone went home with everything you see here. Everyone brought a card and a 3-D item for everyone else to make. Kristen also had a project for us and many of us also brought roomie gifts.My assigned job for the weekend was to figure out the Pop Up O Christmas Tree Big Shot Die, come up with a card, and then walk everyone else through it. it wasn't easy. I tell ya, demos can whine louder than any customer I've come across when they have to learn something the least bit difficult. Bob did a very nice job on his, I thought:
We watched a bunch of movies, played the Stampin' Up Compilation CD and sang along, checked out minute-by-minute SU Convention news on Stampin' Addicts, went to IKEA for some uber-shopping (!!!) and ate at The Cheesecake Factory. Bob and I took a nap on the way home. What a GREAT weekend. Thanks again, Kristen!
That sounds like soooo much fun! Love that Bob, too! (grin)
We need to do it again! Seeing the pictures brought back all the fun memories! I appreciate you all so much! It is so great to have such a fun creative group.
By the way, you should see my stamp room now! I can barely move! This weekend I am cleaning it up. I do not even know how many projects have been prepped with no clean up following. Yikes!