It Really Was an Evening to Remember!

WOW .... WOW .... WOWZER! My Evening to Remember was exactly that ... and more. All of the hard work, planning, fretting, stewing, buying, cutting, bagging, toting, and worrying certainly paid off. I woke early Friday morning and started packing all of the 'stuff' to take it up town to the Joseph Smith Memorial building. As I was getting ready I let out a few, wild screams! My husband excitedly asked, "What in the world is wrong?" "Nothing", I replied ... "It's just that my heart is in my stomach and I'm nervous, scared, and excited and I'm so worried that someone will be disappointed with the evening." He calmed me down by saying, "Linda, when you gather over 200 of your friends and family in a room, who WANT to be there, you're not going to have to worry about someone not having fun." And he was exactly right.

Lori Hatton met me at 1:00 p.m. and we started stuffing the Make & Take packets, hauling everything up from the cars to the banquet rooms, and setting everything. Donna Moore arrived shortly after. There's no way I could have put on this event without their help. I love both of them dearly! Lori designed the 4th Make & Take, a darling punched frog and prepped all (200) packets. It only took her and her Mom 8 hours to complete that assignement. Whew! And Donna Moore helped prep packets at my home for hours and hours, driving all the way from Springville to help me.

A couple of hours later the forces arrived, my girls, to help complete the setup. Shortly around 5:00 our wonderful guests started arriving. As I watched the room fill up I only had a short panic attack. I started wondering how we were going to get ALL 200 people fed and back into the banquet room in a timely manner. The staff at the JSM were fabulous and I could tell they had certainly done this before ... however, I don't think they had ever seen women stamp projects after dinner. In fact, one of the servers asked if we were coming back next year because he wanted to work our event. He said that the weddings were boring, but our event was so much fun and the women were laughing and the singing was wonderful and it was a blast working it! The ambiance was everything I had imagined, from the table settings, to the fantastic view of the temple. There was a beautiful sunset and a breathtaking view for pictures at the close of the day. And the food was to die for. Everyone seemed so happy and it was so much fun watching them be pampered with the lovely surroundings and fantastic food and company.

After everyone was seated and I gave a short welcome, our special guests arrived, Lori Hatton and Jaron Winder. It was such an honor to have them in attendance. One of the highlights of my past convention experiences was hearing Jaron sing. He favored us with the same number he shared with thousands a couple of years ago and received a standing ovation! Both Lori and Jaron are doing well, enjoying their employment, and loving life. Life has been great!

For those of you who are reading my blog and wondering why I put on an event during the free night of the Stampin' Up! Convention ... it was out of pure love for the demonstrators. Hundreds have asked if I was coming to Convention and many asked me to meet them somewhere for dinner. Since I can't be in several places at once, I wanted to do a kind gesture for the demonstrators on their free night ... show them my town ... give them fabulous food ... share a beautiful, historical building with them ... give them a little bit of history of my city ... and just get together with friends and family and eat, visit, stamp and have a wonderful time. And that's exactly what we did. As I looked out over the audience that night and looked at those beautiful faces with those beautiful smiles I will NEVER forget that experience and I will NEVER forget the love I have for my Stampin' Up! friends. I can honestly say that if I EVER needed anything from anyone of you, you would be willing to help me out instantly. I indeed am blessed by my association with you and am so blessed to call you my dear friends.

A BIG THANK-YOU to Diana Gibbs and Dina Anker for helping me with the event. Diana was the master-mind, creator behind three of the projects and cut a gazillion pieces of cardstock for two of the projects. Dina was our communication/web specialist. She's a whiz at computers, designing gorgeous websites and taking care of the registraton process. When I get my business going I'll definitely hire her! And many thanks to Connie Jewkes, and Dina's great friends who offered to help out that evening. Couldn't have done it without you!

And last but not least ... thank-you to my beautiful daughters and handsome husband for helping me at the last minute and ALWAYS putting up with my crazy ideas. Many of you asked if I was going to do this again next year and I responded that if I had any complaints I wouldn't do it. So far so good ... positive comments so I'm already planning something else ...something even bigger and maybe even wilder. We'll see what this imagination cooks up. I have a few ideas up my sleeve.

We've taken pictures of all of the swaps and waiting for a copy of the CD so we can upload them to An Evening to Remember 2010 website. I'm sending the CD to Dina so it may take a few days for them to appear. In the mean time, my photographer daughter, will be posting pictures to my blog for you to enjoy the evening festivities.

I can't tell you enough times how much I love all of you. You are all such wonderful friends and I am so blessed to have you in my life. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!