the rest of san antonio.

ok. well i didn't have time to give another update from san antonio. and i've been super tired and catching up on sleep and everything, but i just finally uploaded my photos to my computer. so it's time for a post. [i might be here all evening trying to get the photos to upload. it's not working very well. grr.]




so first there are a couple photos from friday night. when we met for dinner, we went into the room and there was the little tool thing on rollers, you know what i mean... well they dubbed it our "horse" because we would be able to let it carry everything for us. and in the spirit of fiskars and texas, we all got an orange cowboy hat with our fiskateer number on it. it was so funny to meet people that you know from online in person. it's just strange to feel like you "know" them and then actually meet them for the first time.

that night we had a couple little warm up sessions. one of them was called the dna of a scrapper or something like that. naturally, i was very excited about that. so of course, there was no way it could have lived up to my expectations. haha. it was ok though. we were just supposed to make a little book about what who we *were*, who we *are*, and who we *want to be*... so i did like a past/present/future thing. but i didn't finish it. then we were supposed to make a layout using the letters of our name to describe ourselves. yeah. i didn't finish that one either. ha.

saturday was better. i slept so well friday night and really didn't want to wake up, but managed somehow. we had some little breakout sessions... three classes with the lead fiskateers. i didn't finish any of those projects. [do you see a theme here? well. i wasn't the only one. in fact, i got a lot further than some people.] we also had a session with the brains on fire people. i'm still not 100% sure what part they were playing in this, but i know they organized it mostly, and i think they are sort of like the public relations firm that fiskars is using to build their company.



anyway. we went to a nice little lunch at this cute little buffet style place. i think that was my favorite meal of the trip. [i'm not a huge fan of mexican food, but of course, that was the focus for most of the food.] on the walk to lunch, we were waiting for the group to catch up and somehow i happened to be standing next to two other amys. sort of random that out of 50, three of us were named amy. but they were really cool. so we sat together at lunch with one more lady named sharon, but we made her an honorary amy. ha.





then we walked around the alamo for a while. i hung out with one of the amys and we just sort of wandered around taking cool photos and went to the gift shop. :]

what else...

oh we had a class with nancy, one of the designers for cloud 9. it was a cd calendar thing, and i finished the cover, january, and half of february. ha.




then we went on this cool boat tour. the whole area was just so pretty. i sat with the two amys. :] i was amazed at how long the boat tour was. i thought it would be a silly little thing... but it was actually really long and nice. we saw 4 or 5 weddings on the way. kind of funny.


then we got dropped off for a mexican food dinner and walked back to the hotel. i got some neat photos on the walk back. i also got really dizzy so that i almost fell over while i was walking. it was a little scary. and i was so nervous since you can just fall right off the edge into the water with nothing to stop you! i still don't believe that onle 3 people fall in per year. i think people just don't report it or something.

after that, we had a class with heidi grace. it was amazing. definiely a highlight of the trip. she is just adorable. she's pregnant right now with a girl who they plan to name ireland. she is seriously the best story teller. she made us tear up and then immediately laugh hysterically. yeah. that was great. and i actually almost finished her project! i could have finished, but i had been trying to get a photo with her, but since everyone else was too... i kept just going back and sitting down. so eventually, she came over and asked me if i was ok. by this point, i had been thinking about my thesis and was a little mad at myself for not spending more time on the rough draft. even though everyone said it didn't matter and not to worry about it... i still was. big time. so this was really on my mind, and when she asked if i was ok... bam. i started getting all teary. and i couldn't really explain it to anyone. it was so embarrassing. i wanted to go clean myself up a little bit, so i left early and didn't finish my project. ah well. :]

that night, we had some cropping time. so i talked to a few people. one lady told me her husband works for genentech, so if i want a summer internship or something to just send her an email. ha. how cool. then angela, amy, and i talked for a while about everything that's been going on lately with the scrapbooking industry. it all makes me so sad. i wish we could all be supportive of each other instead of being jealous. grr. anyway. it was a good talk that we had. good bonding time. :]

angela and i stayed up until like 4am packing all of our stuff and talking. ha. good call. not! the morning came way too soon. we had a nice breakfast. it was probably my second favorite meal of the trip... there was bacon, so i was a happy girl. then we had a little graduation ceremony and we each got a little necklace with a scissors charm. cute.




after that, it was pretty much over. some of us who didn't have to leave yet went to lunch on the riverwalk. mexican food of course. luckily i was able to get a hamburger. [for $13, but whatever. haha.] then we took a bunch of random silly photos on the walk back to the hotel.

everyone was so worried about their bags being overweight. angela and i didn't depart until 5:00pm, but we took the 2:30 shuttle because we just figured we could hang out with people at the airport. we also had extra time to make sure our bags were ok... angela was close with one of her's... about 45 pounds. but both of mine were only like 25-35 pounds. i think most people had one big bag and one little bag, but i had two medium bags. i also packed a ton of stuff in my carry-ons. they were so stinking heavy! but we made it without any problems. the lady next to me on the flight to reno had two little puppies with her. i had no idea you could take them as a carry-on, but they didn't make a sound the whole flight. most people didn't even know they were there until she was getting off the plane.

yep. so it was an amazing trip. a bit of a blur. and i'm a little mad at myself for putting school stuff on the back burner, but it all works out, right? sad to have it over, but happy to be home. :]