WHEW...lots to share!

sunday night, arrived at mom's around 7:30pm dropped on her bed to crash!!!

( big, heavy, HAPPY sigh...)

Gimli Getaway, Gone Scrappin'

came and went too fast, it is now over.

how can i possibly express myself and all my emotions and feelings of this past weekend?

for my FIRST ever weekend getaway, i am soooooo thrilled with all the happenings and events that took place in our cropping conference room! from most of my feedback so far, i feel that everyone enjoyed themselves and had a great weekend escape with all of my girls! i have a fantastic group of friends in my scrapping world and i am so glad that those of you who were able to come were there to share my own first experience as well with a whole weekend of scrapbooking fun!

I cannot thank you all enough for your excitement, your enthusiasm, your encouragement, your ideas and all of your understanding support!

my mom....oh boy!

you have been my rock of encouragement and love from day one of this business adventure for me over the last 2 and a bit years since the 'birth' of The Scrappin Studio!

your own growth in this little world of ours is inspiring to me and i love how equally you get excited as each new box of goodies arrive, or a new class project has been created to learn, and how much closer our friendship as mother and daughter has become ( is that even possible? )!!! you mean the world to me mom and i am so happy you came out with me to share this experience by my side, holding my hand!

i love you so much!

okay...here's what you've all been waiting for...( enough with the sappy stuff, right? )

heeheehee!

i will have ALL the photos available to show at classes and hall crops so make sure when you attend next, you make sure you take a peek at them all ( sorry folks, can't share EVERYTHING here!! wink )

...the arrival of the Slice Girls...

Thelma, Sandy, Tracy, Deanna and Norine...they meant business!! LOL!

...settled in and ready to work Slice Girls...


...here comes trouble HAHAHAHA!!
Michelle, Lisa, Erin and Jennifer

...the PINK prize table-all for Sunday afternoon!

friday night for fun and to start the weekend off, I had an optional name tag contest for the girls and here's the entries...

i will DEFINATELY NOT be the judge again next time!

they were all fabulous..great job ladies!

...here are the winners...

Thelma and Lora Leigh!!

...me working at classes...

...a couple shots of our cropping room...i seem to have taken these picures when everyone was out for lunch or dinner...but LOOK at all the stuff in here! WOW!!!

...some class photos....

...and without getting myself into a world of trouble by posting all the pool room photos, i will share but ONE fun timer shot taken in the hot tub at about 2am our last night there...

( i made special arrangements for a late night swim for whomever wanted to join us for a dip after cropping until midnight...15 hours of cropping on saturday...i think we all deserved a special treat in the pool! )

...sunday afternoon, this is the wall of entry layouts for the ballot voted "Favorite Layout" contest...this was my charity event where you paid $1 per layout to enter ( and as many as you wanted ) and all proceeds will be donated to Parkinson Research Manitoba.

Thank you to all who participated and gave a little extra as a donation!

We raised $83 to donate!

all the layouts were awesome and amazing! you ladies sure have some excellent talent!

...this was another optional ballot voted contest! Favorite Chipboard Album.

again, great work ladies, they all looked fabulous and I'm again sooooo happy I did not have to judge them!

i had drawn a name sunday afternoon for my

'Scrapbook Princess'

and Rachelle was the lucky winner!

( one day, when your daughter is bigger i hope to see some cute layouts of her in her mommy's special Princess hat! )

i had 5 optional layout contests running until noon on suday to enter in which the scrapper would receive a ticket to be drawn as the winner on sunday afternoon...

these are my winners for the following contests:

Anita: Lotsa Little Stuff

Dana: Girly Layout

Tracy: Any Occasion Card

Mom: Using Chipboard

Lora Leigh: Creative Journaling

CONGRATULATIONS LADIES!

for the Favorite Chipboard Ablum contest, here are my voted winners:

1st- Tracy

2nd- Kim

WAY TO GO YOU TWO! they were awesome!

and the winner of the voted Favorite Layout Contest

was.....

Liza!!!

CONGRATULATIONS ON A GREAT JOB LIZA!!!

i hope you make use of and enjoy all your new goodies!

...this weekend getaway was so awesome!

i had such a great time with everyone and i sincerely hope that you ALL enjoyed yourselves and your time with me as well.

i definately intend to make this getaway an annual spring event so i hope that you will consider attending next year's Gimli Getaway, Gone Scrappin event with me once more!

THANK YOU ALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART FOR MAKING MY FIRST GETAWAY SUCH A SUCCESS IN SO MANY WAYS!

...upon returning back home, we arrived to drop off my mom and stayed on for a visit there as sunday was my grandma's 87th birthday!!

a good hot cup of tea ( which i managed to drink it's entirety-hahaha ) and a yummy piece of birthday cake was a great way to end my evening with my warm and loving family all together!

PERFECT!

happy birthday grandma! we all love you tons!!

...AND...one last thing i have to share with you...

for those of you who have kept up with my blog, or remember my summer study last summer/fall with tyler...we thoroughly enjoyed a weekly visit to the park and photo journalled the canada goose....one family in particlar.

anyway....i took the kids to the park after school yesterday and...

THEY'RE BACK!!!
( we walked around for an hour and a half, feeding the cute couples as we found them, but of course did not manage to see them all yet...so we didn't find our special little mommy...yet! we know her by the very evident scar at the base of her neck from a collar tag )

anyway...i thought you might enjoy one of our happy places....

...and that's all folks!!!

:O)