Well here we are in Sunny Hot Arizona - and none too soon apparently according to the reports of snow up in Sunny Frigid Alberta. But we won't gloat because we're all too aware that in less than a week we'll be leaving this balmy paradise to brave our familiar cold Alberta fall and winter.
We've been here (Mickey and me) for a few days now and today was actually the first full day of our scrapbooking convention. We are exhausted already, convinced that such events are not for the overaged and overweight. I mean, walking the floor of the Vendor Faire alone is enough to make a 20-year old drop with fatigue (and the weight of all her purchases). We were very conservative in our purchases though and only bought the absolute essentials! The class we took was excellent - we completed four 12 x 12 page layouts and brought home 4 companion pages (2 page spreads) to complete at home - which we've already done. Mickey has two classes tomorrow and I have three so it's a good thing we 'did' the vendor faire today as we'll have no time for it tomorrow.
But scrapbooking isn't all we're doing. We had an agenda of 'must-do' items while we're down here. The first, and most important, was to take our 1995 Ford Windstar van in to have the AC fixed. When Curtis and Amy were here last weekend they had it recharged but it still didn't work so we had to take it in for heavy duty repair work because, as you can imagine, you simply cannot drive without air conditioning down here. We took it in yesterday and today we got it back, although we're over $1000 poorer for our efforts. As the service rep told me, 'there are a bunch of penquins sitting in the front seat of it now because it's so cold'. So far it seems to be working well. A good thing too because we just couldn't stand to drive Sara and Quincey's Mercedes around any more...it's just not good for our image!!
This was another of our must-do items and we're proud to say we took care of it on our second day in town - lunch at the Paradise Cafe. You can tell from Mickey's expression just how much she was looking forward to biting into her chicken walnut sandwich. They are soooo good. We bought a loaf of their fresh baked whole grain bread too. It is the best bread I've ever had.
Although we didn't take a picture of it, our first stop for food was Macayos Mexican restaurant, and today for lunch we went to our third essential restaurant - Chipotles. So now that we've got those places out of our system, for a couple of days anyway, we'll calm down and eat like we're supposed to...whatever that is.
This is the site of our convention this weekend. The Renaissance is a lovely luxurious hotel. Our conference space is comfortable and spacious and the classrooms are large, comfortable and not at all crowded, which is an important consideration when everyone there is working with knives, scissors and glue! We were so excited to be there, and busy, that we forgot to take pictures of our classes, etc. so maybe tomorrow we'll remember.
And when we get home we head straight for the pool to cool off after the incredible effort of working (playing?) all day in an air conditioned luxury hotel. Really sucks to be us!
And then after a light supper at home we settle in to continue working on scrapbooking projects we started at the classes we took and projects we brought from home. And that's a brief look at our life away from our families for a few days. We're managing just fine but missing the men, who Lloyd says should be here taking care of us!
the frantic, exciting world of scrapbooking. It was a busy day - Mickey and I took two classes in the morning, starting at 8:30, and while I took a third class at 12:30, she left her bags with me and checked out anything she may have missed at the Vendor Faire.
Our first class involved creating our first acrylic albums. This was the most important one for us to take as it involved learning a technique neither of us had done before but have wanted to do for quite awhile. It was surprisingly easy to do. The best part of the class was the prizes. I won the very first door prize of the day - a set of acrylic stamps - and both Mickey and I got a prize for being the ones who travelled the longest distance to get there...an honor we shared with the girl who was there from Holland.
I know it's hard to tell from the picture, but that's my finished acrylic album and it really is a lovely piece of art. now I just have to add the pictures. I'll do that when I get home.
