River Fire 09

every year here in Brisbane the city celebrates with River Fire. It is really cool, almost everyone comes out to watch either going into the city or going to a lookout where you can get a great view. It kicks off at 7pm and lasts for half an hour of amazing fireworks all thru the city and off all the bridges, and then finishes with F 111 jet fighter planes doing a dump and burn over the city ... very cool!

This year we went over to my sisters place on the other side of the river, and went (with the rest of her neighbourhood) to a vacant block that overlooked the city ... it was fun!

I really want to be creative, but i am tired. I went for a run this morning ... and honestly, i felt horrible! it was hot, i was hurting ... it wasn't pretty! so i'm guessing my body just wants some rest now. I have all my new scrapbooking stuff out ready to play with and add photos to my projects, but i have had 3 jewellery previews this week ... so i have not had time! maybe tomorrow! :-)

I will share some more photos from my trip quickly tho ... when we got back to Utah, we went the next day into the Temple Square and visited all the Morman buildings. For those of you who didn't know, the Morman's founded Utah - so they have amazing buildings in the centre of the city ... we got to tour thru them and then have an amazing lunch ... honestly, there was ALOT of food ... i was impressed.

Utah is a nice city, i liked it alot. I especially loved the mountains, and can't wait to go back when there is snow on them!

That afternoon we went up to Park City ... i just loved the whole ski town vibe. These are the ski jumps they used for the olympics ... so cool!

Heaps of cool, funky shops line the main street ... fun for exploring.

In NZ they house cows that are used as art throughout different towns ... it was funny to see Moose here ... this one had high heels and jeans on ... so funny!

ok ... thats it for me ... time for sleeping! I will post my LA whirlwind tour next time and hopefully some more creative things to show (oh and also the prize i won at CE!)

Back to Reality ...

i could not be more lucky ... all my prayers were answered. Basically every part of my trip was fabulous .... I was able to sleep for 8 hours on my flight which was my best effort yet ... knew one of the air stewards coming back home who looked after me and made me feel real special ... so it was all good.

It was so nice to have a break from all my normal commitments, just renews and refreshes the spirit! Made me appreciate each one of them so much more, also had time to think about how i can be a better person, and balance my life better.

I managed to get all my projects and purcashes home in one peice. I had to buy a new bag to get everything home (esp after i had a last minute shopping spree at Target)

Here are a few more of the projects we did at Creative Escape .... the first is the 7 Gypsies one ... i love this project, we did the "5" in the technique boutique before the classes started.

The next is Heather Bailey's class ... its a real cute project. I have photos to add ... so will show more once i have added all the pics.

Some of our good friends from NZ arrived to stay yesterday, its been so fun having them here ... we have had many laughs, makes me wish we lived closer. They have 2 girls, and all our girls get on fabulously! They are great friends. We started out the day making the Dad's a nice breakfast. The girls had bought Gary cute gifts from the school "Fathers Day Stall" i love seeing what they pick ... and the reasons behind! We went for a river cruize in the boat ... it was such a nice day for it ...

Just Ordered Room Service ...

food always tastes better when someone else makes it. I have spent today in LA. Unfortunately it was an early flight out, i guess the upside of that was that i have squeezed alot into it. I got here at 8am, and was on a tour bus by 9am ... no mucking around!

I guess it will be better to share todays adventures when i post the photos. I have just had room service, had some Sees chocolates (so yum, thanks Emily for the tip) and am going to do some work real quick before leaving for the airport to go back to my sweet family

so the first photo was in Heidi's class. Totally emotional for me, as my little girls were on the slide show, so when they popped up i totally started balling .... you know, ugly loud crying. I just wasn't in control of it ... i am blaming it on tiredness too ok! so you can see i look a little bit of a wreck in the photos because of the balling! Great class, i loved it ... can't wait to put the photos in when i get home. i did finish all my projects in class, so have to still photograph the rest, so i will share those when i get home ... you will have to keep checking back! After Heidi's class was Heather Bailey's class. She taught a super cute project too ... (same, no photos yet) i love her material, and bought some little kits at the store, so will be sewing when i get home too ... (i am intending on having lots to share instead of my boring track record!) :-( So there was alot to do in Heather's class and it was pretty go, go, go ... but i did love the end result.

After dinner that night Heidi gave a great talk, very inspirational and motivational ... just what i needed to get me out of my creative rut! She was talking about how important it is to scrapbook so we don't forget the details ...

After that was a suprise class ... a special album kit. It did have some sewing on it, and i will be honest the sewing did make me want to go to sleep ... by 9pm i was toast!

Another surprise when we got back to our room (which happened to be 1/4 mile or 400m from the lift) was this cute RAK (random act of kindness) i definitely felt pampered! how lucky! The next day followed starting out with Marra who talk a really cool box with 12 little mini albums inside. So i am looking back and realising that i have completely mucked the orders around ... i guess that doesn't really matter ... i think when i have all the finished projects i will explain the classes ... sorry!

Saturday night they had the final dinner, with huge raffles, and an auction on Heidi and Tim's lamps they had altered to raise money for cancer. We were amazed as Heidi's fetched $8200 and then i was in shock as Tim's lamp raised $29000 .... gasp! Then i was lucky enough to win a lucky door prize, a cool trimmer and tool pack ... i haven't opened it yet. So will photograph that when i get home too!

We had a guest speaker talk after the auction ... i will explain her message in the next post. Its time to pack up and get to the airport!

see you in Brisvegas!