SU! Convention 2012 in Canberra

Well we have been home for a few weeks now and this is the first time I have had a chance to do a post. I have been busy preparing for workshops, minding grandchildren and working etc etc. We had a fabulous time at our annual SU! Convention which was held in Canberra this year. As usual SU! out do themselves and we can never imagine it would get better but it does. I travelled by plane with a lovely bunch of demonstrators some I had met before and some I hadn't. One of the demonstrators brought along one of her customers. Of course how can you not join up after being able to taste what it is like to become one of the SU! family. Yes she has joined.  We arrived late on Tuesday night and booked into our rooms. Most of us stayed in the same apartments and were able to visit each other over the next few days. The view was fantastic. Some mornings it was so foggy and others it was clear.

This was hanging inside the entrance of the restaurant.

On Wednesday some of us (six) were up at the crack of dawn and bussed it to Thredbo to experience the snow. We were so excited. Our driver, John was excellent. John has lived in the area since he was a child and had many stories to tell us. We were even entertained by his singing, which was lovely. We had our lunch at the highest restaurant in Australia way above the valley. What a gorgeous view and it was so warm and cosy while we ate our yummy soup etc. We took the chairlift to the restaurant and were very lucky that the season hadnt begun yet so it was so quiet. Talk about quiet!

Me at the Eagles Nest restaurant. Australias highest restaurant.

We even commented on how quiet (a deafening quiet) it was travelling on the chairlift.  We had a snowball fight which our driver, John started. It was time to head back down and it was sad to leave as I could have stayed there for days just to experience waking up in the snow. We did however get a surprise as we happened to meet Stuart Diver at the bottom. That was the icing on the cake. Such a nice fellow.  It was a long day as we didnt arrive back until about 6pm (after picking up our gorgeous SU!bags from the convention 

John Williams. Our tour guide

One of my favourite photos from Thredbo

This year I found that time spent at the Convention was very relaxing. No-one was in a hurry to grab their seats etc. We had plenty of time to get from one class to another. Memento Hall was packed but it was nice to meet new people while we waited in the queue. The queue went down pretty quickly anyway but I met a new friend because of that queue. We learnt lots of new ideas, saw some sneak peeks, met some wonderful people, mingled with old friends and some that we had met from previous Conventions. We met in the room here for lunch and also did our Make & Takes here. You can just see the pin up boards where all the lovely projects were displayed for all to see.

This is where we had our lunch, dinner & Make & Takes.

Look how empty the plane was.

We dined at some lovely restaurants, made some lovely projects, lounged around in each others apartments etc etc etc. Next year Convention is in Brisbane.  I have only driven quickly through Brisbane and didnt stop so it will be nice to check it out. Our plane was half empty on the way home so some of us made use of the empty seats by stretching out or having a sleep.

 Going back to work was really difficult this time. We had lots of projects to finish and I had lots of photos to go through (over 1,300). Here are some of the swaps that were going around. I managed to do around 50 swaps this year and was very happy with what I received back.

One of my swaps

Hopefully the girls in our groups have received their USB's with the photos on them. Its hard to remember everything we saw so the photos help to bring it all back again. Thanks Stampin' Up! for a wonderful Convention and thanks to all of my friends who made it special for me.                                                                     I'm off to check out my photos now and to do some cardmaking. Thanks for popping by:)