Salt Lake City Grand Vacation Part One

Well I promised to share some of my adventures from my Grand Vacation and what better way to do than with a sampling of the huge number of photos I took. I’ll split it up into a few posts, but I’m warning you, none of them will be short.

For those who don’t know, I earned the Stampin’ Up! Grand Vacation. And this year, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary, all the South Pacific and European achievers were flown to Salt Lake City, Utah, the home of Stampin’ Up! We were also invited to attend this year’s US Convention in Salt Lake City before heading off to be spoiled rotten at a 5 star resort in the Utah mountains.

Wonder Hubby was unable to attend so I invited my friend, and former upline, Tanja. She was the one who introduced me to Stampin’ Up! so seemed the perfect choice to bring along.

When we were shown our options for flights one of them was via San Francisco. We jumped at the chance to add an extra couple of days exploring that beautiful city on our way to Salt Lake City.

Despite it being the middle of summer, the weather wasn’t kind to us in San Francisco. We even needed to buy jackets so we wouldn’t freeze on the boat over to Alcatraz.

It was a flying visit but we saw the major sights and had a ball. And it was so much nicer to break up the journey too.

We then headed over to Salt Lake City just in time for Convention. In Australia this year our Convention had around 700 people. This one had almost 6000!!!!

It was incredibly busy but the crowd was buzzing and it was so exciting to be a part of it. We international interlopers even got a special mention and welcome from Shelli herself at the opening session!

In addition to the general sessions there were all sorts of additional displays, classes and activities. And giveaways, did I mention giveaways! On the first night there was an expo with ongoing demonstrations, product playgrounds, and a karaoke competition to give the place a party atmosphere.

One of my favourite events was the attempt at a Guiness World Record for the most number of greeting cards sent from a single location. We only had three hours to participate but Tanja and I both managed to make it to the front of the queue and play our part. I sent a card to a lovely friend back home who’d been in an awful accident the week before. Tanja sent one home to her daughter who was having a birthday while we were away. This is us with the postie and his van before they headed off to get all those cards on their way!

And, yay! We set the record! I can’t remember the exact figure but I think it was in the region of 3000!

Everyone we met treated us so well and made a big fuss of us coming all that way. It was a really welcoming atmosphere.  We met lots of people while queuing for various activities and bizarely amongst all those people we managed to keep running into the same ones.

There was even an Achiever’s Room we could go to for a little break from the chaos of so many people. This is me with some new US demonstrator friends, Kristin Kortonick, Sherill Graff and Mary Ellen Byler.

Another exciting part of Convention was getting sneak peeks at some of the new products. Some of what we saw probably won’t make it to Australia but some of it definitely will. One of my favourites is the new Undefined kit. It has tools and rubber and some templates so you can really get creative and make your own custom stamps. With my first chance to play I made a door stamp for my team, The Stampers Next Door! I can’t show you any of the products yet but I can show you what I made with them.

I have so many more photos of the displays, the classes, the presentations, the people, and the spectacle of the whole event but I’ll finish up here with one of me and Tanja at the Awards after party. This event was amazing, there were acrobats hanging from the ceiling, a live band, delicious treats, all sorts of games and competitions, green screens for professional photo opportunities and so much more.

US Convention was three exhausting, action-packed days with thousands of like-minded and enthusiastic people having a ball. It’s an experience I’ll never forget. And it was just the beginning. The very next day we boarded a coach to begin the real Grand Vacation part of our trip!

Back soon with the next installment.

Cheers

Genna

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