What a day!!!!

As I mentioned in my previous post, Dina and Esther entered by secret passage into the convention centre at 4:45am to line up for the general session. Listening to Esther retell their stealth mission put me into stitches laughing. Apparently the entire convention centre was locked up but Dina found some way in. Dina kept telling Esther to be quiet and stop her bag from jangling. I think Esther almost lost it when she was trying so hard to be quiet but accidentally knocked over the large wooden flower display and broke it. They then had to pretend to lie down and sleep when women outside started knocking on the door trying to get in. Can you imagine the hysteria that I missed? I rolled in much later and just strolled to the front of the line and watched the excitment mount as the time ticked closer to the start of general session. I was informed that an elderly lady behind us in line, tore her hamstring running to the front row seats when they opened the doors last year. Here's Dina knocking on the door. It was an incredible experience when they opened the door and we ran like mad to try and get the front row seats. Stampin' Up! had lined the path with staff members who high fived us as we ran in to loud, energetic music. We felt like super sports stars or movie stars or something. Very cool! Fortunately, none of us tore our hamstrings and managed to get awesome seats where we didn't miss a thing.

There are thousands of people at convention. Here's a shot of us demonstrators from above... Sometimes I felt like a sardine!

Time to show you a few samples that I saw displayed throughout the convetion centre. I swapped all my cards (and yours too, Shelley!). Swapping cards is so fun. All the beautiful and different ideas are so inspirational. Come out to my open house on July 21st to see all my swaps!

The evening was the awards night. All the top demonstrators are honoured. It was interesting for me to see these hugely famous and successful demonstrators go on stage to receive their awards and special jewllery and coach bag gifts. They also had asked all the demonstrators who earned the Disney trip to do a march across the stage so here I am. They also announced the new incentive trip for next year is to Fiji. Frankly, the pace of convention is a little much for me. I am so sleep deprived I don't even feel tired.

Still...I'm glad I didn't miss it.