Chalk Art Festival

On Friday night, I went with Steph and family to the Chalk Art Festival at the Gateway. When we first got there, we just saw "art" that was obviously done by mostly very young children. While Kaiya quickly found a piece of chalk and was thrilled with that whole aspect, we did eventually find the contest entries. Since the Festival concluded the next day, most were in process. As you can see, there was some real talent displayed.

We also stopped at the Gateway fountains, where, as you may already know, children love to play amid the fountain spurts (and you never know when a particular spot will spurt) and steam. Teague had a blast and laughed and laughed ... Kaiya was a little more cautious.

The next day, Steph was feeling worse and so the kids came over to Grandma's house for the afternoon. My baby sister Karen and her daughter Kara also happened to be visiting, so we all spent an enjoyable afternoon together. Kaiya was busy building tent houses, and Teague was busy charming the ladies. That night Karen, Kara and I went to dinner at P.F. Changs with Kris and Sterling. What a blast ... especially the whole discussion of "quotients" ... intelligence, emotional, social, etc., etc. You know what I mean if you were there. :-) And how are YOUR quotients?

Teague's First Birthday

Teagie turned one on June 11. Steph and Mickel were kind enough to wait until Sunday to have a birthday party for him, so I was able to be there. He went from taking a few steps before I left for my convention, to walking by the time I got home!

Steph had an adorable surfer theme going (which is what his bedroom is done in as well - the kid has no choice but to be a surfer dude). I didn't manage to get the cake before it was partly disassembled, but it sure was cute. Teague didn't destroy it so much as carefully dismantle it.


Surf's up, Teddy Dudes!

Here's our sweet Kai. She was a good big sister and helped Teague open his presents ... and play with them.


Teague in his new chair from yours truly. He was pretty tickled with it!

Here's sweet Sadie, daughter of Steph's friend (and Mickel's cousin) Jackie, and daddy Preston.

And here's my sweet baby, and photographer extraordinaire (and a dang good Mom), Stephanie.

2009 Rising Star Convention

At this year's Rising Star Convention, we had 106 visitors, coming in from 14 countries, speaking (at least!) 4 languages. It was a great group, full of enthusiasm and gratitude, which of course makes my job so much easier and more fun. And it was great to have Gayle on board to help. As I told her, it meant that I had to work far less overtime this year. :-)

Last Sunday, which was arrivals day, we focused on just getting them here. I'm amazed to say that we didn't lose a single bag this year. However, we had nine people from the Russia market who ended up getting stranded in New York City, and they didn't get in until the following morning (although their bags made it the night before - as I said, a great year for luggage). On Monday, we had a spruced up Education Session (thanks again, Tom and Burke!). On Tuesday, we had what we call "NSP Day" which is a visit to the manufacturing plant, the corporate offices and is supposed to be topped off with a visit to the Founder's "cabin." Alas, the rain that day meant we couldn't go to the cabin, so we had a mountain picnic instead at Mt. Timpanogas Park in Provo Canyon. It actually worked out great, and we were protected from the rain.

On Wednesday, the group flew together to Las Vegas for a lot of free time, and tickets to the show KA (which is GREAT - you should go if you get the chance). On Thursday, we had a Farewell Dinner and then on Friday the guests all headed home. Since Friday was also my birthday, I stayed over and celebrated with my good friend Jennifer (from our Canada office) and a bunch of her friends. I can't really speak of that - because I promised it would not be documented in any way - but suffice it to say that we had a great time!

NSP Day was quite a long one, so here a few Distributors are catching up on their z's.

In order to give the corporate guys time to get to the mountain picnic before the Distributors, we stopped at Bridal Veil Falls for a "photo opp." This is Erlinda, who is the Country Manager of NSP Honduras.

One of the Distributors from Panama, who was quite fond of kissing me (in a Panamanian greeting sort of way).

Mt. Timpanogas Park has a great, completely covered pavilion, which ended up saving the day because of the rain.

The group gathering to go to KA.