Hello and Happy Monday! I am in a fabulous mood today. I just returned from an amazing Leadership Conference last night and I am so excited and raring to go! Is that how you spell that?? Anyway, I thought I’d share a few of the highlights of my trip on the old blog and the best one to start with I thought was Manager’s Reception.
This is only the second year that I’ve qualified for Manager’s Reception (Last year I got to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando) and while I was super excited to see Harry Potter last year, this year was truly amazing. I’m not sure if it’s because last year I was kind of solo for the trip or just because this year was better, but nonetheless… Manager’s Reception 2014 was awesome.Stampin’ Up rented out the Downtown Aquarium (in Houston) for us for the whole night — just us!
We were greeting by these two (on the right) when we got off the bus from the conference center… talk about feeling short! 🙂 They were really cool. That’s the Aquarium building behind them… so fun. Our first stop was the Shark Depot. It was a cute little train that made it’s way through the 7-acre park including a trip through a tunnel filled with sharks! Check out some of these photos (and sorry for the quality of some of these pics… I forgot my real camera so had to take all my Leadership photos with my cell phone!):
Really tough to see, but you get the idea, right? Ugh. I’m so mad I forgot to bring my real camera. There were so many amazing photo opps. I’m just thankful that cell phones have such great cameras these days — otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to show you!Check out the teeth on the big guy to the right… not something I want to run into!
We then went in and played with the Sting Rays… I was a wimp and wouldn’t feed them, but got soaked when my roomie (Rose Ward) fed them and they got overly excited. Unfortunately I don’t have any of those photos… trust me it was hilarious. The facial expressions on her when the sting ray sucked the little fishy out of her hand was priceless. I was too busy inspecting the fish that they wanted me to touch! Ha. If you’re friends with me on Facebook she tagged me in one of her photos… too funny.
Next we went upstairs to check out the buffet (after stopping outside to pick up a chocolate covered strawberry — my very favorite!). Oh my goodness this buffet was amazing… here are a few photos…
This was my favorite (to the left)… it was a mashed potato (or sweet potato) bar! Oh my goodness… I’m in love. Let me tell you… I have a huge crush on potatoes… especially mashed! And this little idea was brilliant… they had like a wok-like pan except it was entirely flat and they put a scoop of potatoes on it and then “folded” in cheese, scallions, bacon, butter and mushrooms! Yumm-my!They also had a shellfish bar, fruit bar, carving station, lobster sliders (I missed those… although I don’t really like lobster all that much …), and an amazing dessert bar! It was tough to decide what was better the mashed potato bar or the dessert bar! 
Outside they even had a hot chocolate station (because you know it was cold for Houston — like 50) with all sorts of yummy toppings: marshmellows, whipped cream etc but I was too full to have any!Just before we headed to the bus to head back to the hotel we got a cute little black and gold aquarium t-shirt and the Sail Away stamp set from the new Occasions catalog.
It was such a fun night. What do you think… want to join me for a Stampin’ Up event some time? Well, it was announced at Leadership that new demonstrators will be able to attend Convention in July with NO registration fee — that’s a $280 savings! And convention is like a big party… I will be there and I’d love to have you join me. Feel free to e-mail me if you have questions… or if you know this is something you want to do… feel free to sign up here and I’ll get you started on your way to earning extra money to pay for the hotel and airfare!
Have a great week!
