CKC - Charlotte, NC

So...who's ready to hear about my latest travel adventure?

As I dig out from under all the things I didn't do when I was traveling the first few weeks of the month, I am finally (mostly -- I was still hoping to receive a few pic in the email, which I didn't get...boo hoo!) ready to post about my *super fun* trip to North Carolina for
Creating Keepsakes Convention - Charlotte!


Now, I was looking forward to this trip so much. Number one, because I LOVE MY JOB! Number two, because I knew I was going to teach Taste of Scraptique twice to 2 SOLD OUT rooms and that is SUPER EXCITING! And last, but NOT LEAST, I had my Bestest Buddy, Sherry coming up from Savannah to work in the booth for the weekend!!
(and we had not seen each other in a WHOLE YEAR!!!)

Now, I know you must be asking yourself, why was I so excited to see her?

Well, short and sweet...I love her. She's a total sweetie and we had only gotten super close in the last year I lived in Georgia. And we were seriously sad when I moved. Last Summer, she came to Topeka in June. You can read about our adventures here and here.

Then, I went to Savannah in August of last year (the plane tickets were a birthday gift from Big Daddy- yep, he rocks!) And while I was there we had a TON of fun! From shopping for Kristine's "personal" wedding shower (purrrrrr!) to eating at our favorite Mexican place to getting spur of the moment decision, matching tattoos!! Read about that here.
Anyway, as much as we are alike, we are different.

And, we are great friends!


So, when I knew we might need some reliable help....I was quick to throw Sherry's hat in the ring to my boss as a possibility. And Sherry was quick to accept the invite! Yay!

So, as the date neared, I was getting excited, but I was just so busy at home. This time I was flying from Kansas City International Airport, which is actually in Missouri. It's about an 1 and 1/2 hour drive from my house to the airport. And upon further inspection of my plane ticket, I realized that I was going to need to be on the road no later than 3:30am to make it in time to catch my 6am flight. Well, at Midnight I was still waiting on the last load of laundry to dry and by the time it did and I packed it....it was about 1am.

So, I went to bed. But, as soon as I hit the pillow....I started panicking.

What if I don't wake up?

What if the alarm doesn't go off in an hour and a half?

What if I turn it off and go back to sleep?

What if I hit snooze and I'm late and miss my plane.

Will Kim kill me? (pause) Yep, definitely.

I WAS UP.
Bottom line, I was so freaked, there was NO WAY I was sleeping!!

So, at 2am....I took a shower.

But, unfortunately for me, I slipped while shaving.
(possibly...fell asleeep?!?!)

Take my word for it...
...shaving while slipping and/or falling asleep is BAD.

(just ask my poor leg!)

So...you remember those cuts that you got when you were like 13 years old and just learning how to shave. You were clumsy and scared. And it seemed no matter how careful you were, you almost always got nicks and sometimes cuts? Well, this cut was one of those BAD BOYS! Started burning the minute it happened. Blood pooling in the shower. BAD!
And when I got out of the shower, it took me like 30 minutes and the help of about 7 bandaids to get the whole thing contained. Seriously.
(THANK GOD I DID NOT GO TO SLEEP.....I WOULD HAVE BEEN SO LATE!!!)

So, I got on the road at 3:25am or so. Went to get gas and hit the highway.

I was really exhausted. But, cold air , loud music and some major caffeine were sure a big help to me and I made it to the airport just fine, with about 50 minutes to spare.

Sherry's morning started around the same time as mine.
Sherry drove up the 4+ hours from Savannah on Thursday morning, as well. As soon as Sherry arrived in Charlotte, her first "assignment" was to pick me up at the airport. Now, it's hard to load bags and say hello and give a good solid hug at the Arrivals loop at the airport, but we did it anyway! I was so happy to see her....and we laughed to find out that we have the EXACT SAME HAIRCUT!

After we got out of the airport and headed to the hotel to pick up boxes that had been shipped to us. Well, that was supposed to be easy, after all we were following a GPS in Sherry's van. Well, not so. Every single way we tried to reach the hotel, we kept encountering
NO TURN signs. After about 10 minutes of driving in a circle downtown (which the Charlottonians call uptown) --with much frustration, we "accidentally" turned because somehow "we just didn't see that sign" and made it to the front of the hotel!

After the hotel "found" our boxes, we loaded them up we went to the convention center.
After more search and find...and another few wrong turns....we found where we needed to be. As we turned the corner at the conventions center loading dock, we came face to face with this... (blurry photo...a drive by photo shooting!)...it's the SEI semi. (And the same thing that I freaked out about seeing the first time I worked for Kim. For scrapbookers, that semi means there's good stuff in that there!!!!)
I had to laugh because I felt that way the first time I saw it...now it's just old hat to me!

When we got there, Bev and Leanne had been there for a bit working before we arrived and the grid was up. Sherry snapped this picture, because she was like WOW!(what a mess, right?! And this is only one booth space, we always have 3 or 4 booths, so it's really this mess X 4!!!) This is how it starts! See....it's ALOT of HARD WORK!
So, after a quick meet and greet...we got busy!

We worked our little buns off and the girl kept working as I set off at 6pm to teach my Scraptique class. I had 100 women signed up for class, so it was a big one!

It was a *FABULOUS* class! I had so much fun!!!! And as I was getting started, I got a shout out from a couple of girls from Savannah about 1/2 of the way back. OLD FRIENDS who drove up from Savannah to come to the convention!!!! And they were in my class!
HOW EXCITING!!!!!! (Hi Girls!!) And it was so hot in there....I made some new friends and even one who gave me her paper fan, so I am wasn't as hot as I was!!!

After class, I went back to the booth and we worked until 10pm on the booth.
(They kick you out at 10pm...we weren't done, but we had to go!)

Then we had to hoof it a few blocks back to the hotel. (with the parking costs being anywhere from $8 to $18, we did a bunch of walking this trip!)

We picked up some dinner TO GO at the sports bar in the hotel, because we were all so exhausted we just wanted to veg out. (remember, I never went to bed and it's now about 11pm) So, we find our room on the Concierge level (woo woo) and open the door.

Look at this....NICE..........and see that white thing at the end of the bed? Yep, that's one of those white hotel robes! How cool is that? (except they only gave us one....and there are TWO of us! So, we ordered up another robe for the 2nd night. We were too tired to care on this night!)
And we had a bag of nuts by the bed and mints on the pillow. Classy!

And here are the remnants of our bed picnic. We had quesadillas and nachos, which we split. (have I mentioned we BOTH LOVE MEXICAN FOOD?) And we followed that up with a piece of divine carrot cake that we shared, until we were about to burst! Not Classy! And there is also a pic of the water bottle we shared because we were completely outraged that if you weren't paying attention and drank THIS BOTTLE OF WATER.......they will charge you $4.00!! Isn't this picture hilarious?!?! I was going for "Outraged!"

(ok, ok..I know I look like a demon spawn...but again remember....no sleep last night, flew 1/2way across the country, worked all day building booth and working on booth and taught 1 1/2 hour class to 100 women and it's now Midnight.......I WAS DEAD TIRED!!!)


Cue....passing out..............


FRIDAY MORNING....
(opening day of show)Here are Sherry and I on opening morning in my beloved Bind-It-All Section.
(Have I mentioned recently how much I Y my BIA?!?!)

This photo was taken like 5 minutes before the show opened. And as soon as the doors were opened, I heard the feet of some crazy lady running....and I was thinking....wow, she's looking for a good deal! And one moment later....she slammed right into me!
Turns out....I was what she was looking for!!! It was my old friend Trish R. from Savannah! (you see....she had emailed me quite a while back to ask if I was working at CKC-Charlotte and I told her I wasn't, because at the time my nieces wedding would be the same weekend. Well, along the way, the date got moved back a week to get the church. And at the last minute....Kim needed me to go. So, I went.)

Anyway, Trish had run into the other Savannah girls and they told her I was there teaching, and apparently she was a little excited!!!! (because, I wasn't supposed to be there!
Isn't that sweet?!?



So, that was a super happy start to my Friday! A huge hug from a good friend!


So, on Friday night, I taught Scraptique again. Another *spectacular* class with a bunch of *fantastic* ladies. Oh, man I had some sweeties in this class! Really enjoy this one!

When I was finished, we walked back to the hotel and went to get dinner.
Surprisingly, I can't remember what we ate for dinner. I have no idea.....

After dinner, we went back to our rooms. So, of course, Sherry and I had to take some silly "bathrobe" pictures, since we made sure we had 2 robes this time. Ya, were pretty much dorks! On Saturday, I was able to snap this picture with one of the "Savannah girls," my friend Joy P., while she was doing the altered clipboard make-n-take in the booth. Cute pic!
It was nice to see you, Joy!


And lastly, I wanted to include this photo with my friends from Rusty Pickle, whose booth was directly across from ours this show. It's Alaina, ME and whatever his name is?!!!!
(this is totally a joke....every single show he puts a different name on his nametag. And this show I even threw out some suggestions of what he might use as his alias next show!
I'm not naming him, just in case......)


And...I'm looking forward to next time.......