Janice Weightman, Page 99

Great way to start the day…beautiful fruit!  Pomegranate gets points for being unique, colorful and pretty!

The Advisory Board Alumni met up in the morning to connect and swap.

Adorable giftable from our Alumni Hostess, Kim Williams.  She used the “Sailing Home” stamp set (pg. 146).

The rest of this post I will share some of the swap cards received from the Advisory Board Alumni group.  They use current product in annual catalog.  I will share even more swaps over the next few days.

Royal Peacock Bundle – pg. 25

Butterfly Wishes – pg. 18

Celebrate with Cake (Beginner’s Brochure – pp. 10-11  – #149501

 Seaside Notions – pg. 139


On to Adventure – pg. 28 

Good Morning Magnolia Bundle – pg. 37

Born to Shine – pg. 143

Inspiring Iris – pg. 111

New Wonders – pg. 207 (Hostess Set)

Winner for today’s drawing:  Susan Corsello
Look for happy mail!!!

Monday Smiles…

I picked up some games for my niece’s upcoming bridal shower.  Panda was questioning our choice on one of the games. 🙂

Ciao to the Sheraton Roma! We are on a SU bus headed to Port Civitavecchia to board Royal Caribbean’s “Jewel of the Seas”.

Kylie & Bruno were sitting in front of us and they have this fun new gadget, which is now on my future “cannot live without” list!

These murals were up in the port terminal building.  Couldn’t resist the touristy photos!

SU always has a cute welcome for us on our doors!  Great memento!

Our home for a week.  I love cruising and visiting different ports.  No need to pack and repack.

I love having a balcony!  You always have a great view.  When you are at sea, you feel like you are being rocked to sleep at night.

I could live on a cruise ship for awhile.  There is always something fun to do.

I love the elevator daily updates.  Helps you keep the days straight when you have vacation brain.

Thirteen decks on this ship!

Time to eat!  It seems like that is what you are always doing on a cruise ship!  The pictures here are from the “Windjammer”, the informal dining area.  They are open for all three meals a day.  We usually ate here for breakfast and lunch when we were on board.  We ate in the formal dining room for dinner. They have a great variety!!!

Time for our daily visit to the SU Hospitality Suite.  Every trip we do some type of service project.  This time we brought items to donate to “Cross-Cultural Solutions” to help support the refugee population in Greece.

Every day SU restocks a candy bar.  You grab a bag and fill up on your favorites.  They have a great variety!

Chatting with Brian Pilling’s wife.  Such a nice lady!

Every day you visit the Hospitality Suite, and spin the wheel.  You win a prize of new product!
The suite is also (wo)manned with SU staff to answer any questions you might have during your trip.

I won the NEW “Stylish Scroll” embossing folder.  This will be available in the upcoming Holiday catalog, that will be available in September.

Time to shove off and head out to sea!  Arrivederci to Rome and we are on our way to Greece!

SU hosted a “Getaway to Greece” party before dinner.  Did I mention you are constantly eating on a cruise ship?

Time for dinner (of course it is…because we were starving right?).  Dinner was in the Tides Formal Dining Room.  We have our choice between appetizers, main courses and a dessert.  Paul chose escargot for his appetizer.

I think I had a mushroom/leek soup.

I forgot to take a picture of our entree, but I didn’t forget to take a picture of our favorite dessert, creme brulee.  I think we like cruising just so we can have that for dessert.

We sat with tablemates from Canada, Shauna Mikuliak and her husband, Brian.  (I will share their picture later in the week).  Every night Shauna would have a cute new insert in the front of her purse that coordinated with her outfit.

Look what I found when we were walking back to our room?  A few weeks ago, I shared about “happy rocks” on my FB group.  How people paint them and leave them to be found and passed on to others.

I took a picture and left if there for someone else to find.

Walking back to our room on the Starboard side of the ship. (I call it the “Starburst” side:).

At night we go back to our cabin and there is always a “pillow gift” from SU.  They spoil us and we love it!  Our first pillow gift of the trip!

NEW black dimensionals!!!

We received this gorgeous backpack!

There were over 445 demonstrators who earned the incentive trip, and 377 that actually took the trip.  With guests and SU staff, there were about 1000 SU people on board the ship.  Our ship had 2702 passengers and 852 crew members.  SU took up over a third of the ship!

Every night our pillow gifts had a clip, bow and a tag.  I figured over the course of the week that means someone tied over several thousand bows just for us.  SU is always all about the details!

Stay tuned for swap pictures to be shared in tomorrow’s post.

Winner for today’s drawing is:  Chris Marks
Look for happy mail!!!
You too can be a winner!  How???  Just leave a comment and I draw a name every day!

Sunday Smiles…

Today is the Retired Stamp Sale 

Sat., July 20, 2019
8 am to 2 pm  – 3879 Parsons Road – Carpentersville, IL (near Spring Hill Mall)

We flew into Rome a day early, just to make sure that we had some extra time.  I always want some padding when we are trying to catch a cruise ship.  We shared a golf cart tour of Rome with some fellow demonstrators.  It was a warm day, so it was nice to have the golf cart and a little breeze.  The tour was three hours long and we were able to personalize it with the places we wanted to see. Here we are in front of the Coliseum.  This was definitely a “pinch me” moment.

Here is our tour guide, Valero.  His English was wonderful and he was so good giving us the history of the city.  I highly recommend a golf cart tour.  It is a great way to get a quick overview of an area.

You can see the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica in the background.

LARGE doors!!!

There are lots of places around Rome to refill your water bottles.

The Spanish Steps.  The following week, we spent more time in Rome and climbed the steps.

What would a trip to Rome be without a peek at fashion???  Many of the women were so effortlessly stylish!

A golf cart is the way to travel!

The famous Trevi Fountain!  HUGE tourist spot in Rome!

I look very “touristy” in this photo.

I love the character of the old buildings, doorways and cobblestone streets.

Lots of smart cars.  Gas prices were pretty high, about $6.00 per gallon.

My favorite tourist!

Our first gelato stop in Rome.

Too many choices.  The prices were very reasonable.  Most of the time gelato was about 2,50 Euros.

Mango was delicious!!!

Valero ended our tour by dropping us off at a lovely Italian restaurant.  The food was delicious and the staff was very warm and friendly.

Paul and I shared meals during our vacation.  It helped to keep the calories down.

This was not our meal, but I couldn’t help but take a picture.  I don’t like to see the eyes of my food.  Our waiter cut the fish for the guest. 🙂

At the end of the meal, they brought us limoncello “on the house”.

Great restaurant and staff!  I would highly recommend this one!

Time to go back to the hotel, because we hit the ground running after arriving in Rome.  We needed to get some sleep before we caught the cruise ship on Sun.  The air conditioning was not working in our room, so the hotel moved us to another room and my Nook (e-reader) got left behind. 🙁  Time to start looking at a Kindle in my future.

Stay tuned each day as I share more of our trip, swaps and NEW product coming in the Holiday catalog.

Winner for today’s drawing:  Marsha Muetterties
Look for happy mail!!!

Saturday Smiles…

Stay cool out there!!!

UPCOMING EVENTS

It is almost here!!! This Saturday  we are hosting a Retired Stamp Sale in Carpentersville, IL…see details below!

Sat., July 20, 2019
8 am to 2 pm  – 3879 Parsons Road – Carpentersville, IL (near Spring Hill Mall)

Paul and I are back from our SU Incentive trip to the Greek Isles.  I will be sharing pictures with my personal notes over the next few weeks.  You can re-live the trip with us (without the heat and stairs :).  It is important to have enough wiggle room in your suitcases to bring home daily SU pillow gifts and hospitality suite prizes.

It always seems stressful getting out the door for a trip.  You are so worried you will forget something or be late.  We made it to the airport and long-term parking (Lot G) and found a space right up front.  That was a sign to let us know that we had an amazing trip ahead.

LOVE the luggage tags SU sends us!  Great memento for a great trip!

We got all checked in for our flights and stopped to have dinner at Chili’s inside the airport.

I’m in the process of letting my gray hair grow out and I have stopped straightening it/adding heat. I’m just letting my curls air dry and minimizing the frizz with a bit of gel.  So much easier! Saves time and money (for more stamps:).  The waitress at Chili’s asked if my hair was natural and I thought she was asking about the curl and she replied, “No, I love your color”.  So that was my first real hair compliment since I started this process mid March this past year.  The transition stage takes a bit of patience, with the variety of colors, but I believe it is worth it over all.

We flew American Airlines out of Terminal 3. I love the domed walkways with the globe and flags for this time of year.

This was one of our first “pinch me” moments, seeing the gate sign!  Italy here we come!!!
Kudos to American Airlines for having a great variety of new movies available for viewing.  Right before the plan loaded, there was a storm and a lot of lightning.  They took all the workers off the runway and that delayed our take off by almost an hour and a half.  We were just sitting on the plane.  They gave us snacks and we just watched movies.  It worked and we made up some of the lost time en route.

We have arrived!  We shared a shuttle to the hotel with several other SU demonstrators and their guests.  Stay tuned tomorrow as share our excursion from our golf cart tour of Rome.  That was amazing!!!

Winner for today’s drawing:  Colleen Beier
Look for happy mail coming to you!!!

Friday Smiles…Stay cool out there!