Vegas...again.

Just got back from another trip to Vegas - in fact, my 3rd in a year! As far as I'm concerned, no one needs to go to Vegas that often. Went for Memory Trends - the final trade show of the calendar year. As always, it was a LOT of work, but still fun all at the same time. We (Jeri, Julie and I) left town on Monday at 2:50 via Allegiant Airlines and South Bend Regional. It was awesome to fly DIRECT from SB to Vegas, but Allegiant is definitely an interesting way to travel. They charge for EVERYTHING - including water and peanuts. Their flights are reasonable - but not that reasonable. Seriously...$3 for WATER??!?

The work started about 30 minutes into the flight (writing lists of all of the papers we need to reorder for every single company) and didn't end for almost 12 hours. We arrived in LV and jumped right on the shuttle. We weren't going to make our first appointment, so the driver dropped us and our luggage off in an alley behind the Sands Expo. We walked (quickly) for what had to be a couple of miles, dragging our luggage all the way. We made it, scarfed as much shrimp, cheese and crackers as we could fit into our faces, place our order at Making Memories, and dashed out the door for out next reception at TI with Creative Imaginations. (Speaking of CI - want to see something really...interesting?) We lugged our bags from the Sands to our hotel, the Mirage, which was right next to (which, in Vegas, means only 1/2 a mile away) TI. After dumping our stuff at the Bellman's desk, we took a tram (yipee!) to TI. We ate a little more there, and started placing our order, but we were running late for our last appointment of the evening, so I ditched the CI party and crossed the street to get to the Venetian to meet with the folks from Quickutz. They had the most incredible desserts!!! I can almost still taste the tiramisu! Julie and Jeri met me when they were done and QK proceded to knock our socks off with their new stuff. We sat and chatted with Spence and Kyle until sometime after 11:00 (which is only 2am our time) and then headed back to the Mirage to see our hotel room for the first time. We organized reorders, stapling lists of papers to P.O.s, I wrote an email and scheduled it to be sent the following day at Noon, introducing QK's new products the moment they revealed it to the general public, and Jeri and Julie plotted out routes for the show on Tuesday. We finally turned in around 2am, if I remember right (again - 5am our time). Ouch.

Tuesday morning was spent getting catalogs from all of the vendors present (the 3 of us divide and conquer) and Tuesday afternoon saw us furiously writing orders from about 1:00 on. We turned in a few (some companies give discounts for orders placed the first day of the show) and then took the rest with us as homework for the rest of the night. We took them with us to dinner at Caribe Cafe and cranked them out. I don't remember what time we went to bed, but I know it was late.

We spent Wednesday morning turning in all of those orders we had written the night before, and Wednesday afternoon taking pictures. We also visited the QK booth for our trip onto the "cash machine." Each of us got a turn, and Spencer joined me for mine. Don't know whose idea that was, but I was definitely set up! Spence spent most of his time pinning me to the plexiglass so that I couldn't use my arms for anything but to protect my face. I laughed so hard that I nearly wet myself. Despite his best efforts to sabotage my chances at winning free stuff, I persevered. The technique of the PIT girls was to "grab and stuff" - Julie and Jeri had dollar bills falling out of their shirts for several minutes after the experience. I, unfortunately, was unable to stuff. I was just happy I could see through the tears and that I didn't break any bones. Most memorable moment of MT 2006, without a doubt.

Madison and Dave from My Mind's Eye took us out to dinner at Canaletto in the canal shoppes in the Venetian and we got to learn all about Madison and his 10 SIBLINGS!! Did I mention that he's from Utah? Had a great time and laughed a LOT. After dinner, the girls and I wandered out to people-watch, and volcano-watch, from the balcony on the front of Venetian before heading back to the Mirage to pack and prepare for a VERY early flight the next morning.

The shuttle picked us up outside the hotel at 4:30am, a.k.a. O'darkhundred. That sucked. We had the privilege of waiting in some long lines at the airport before we finally grabbed a Burger King breakfast and a mocha from Starbucks. Our flight left at 7:20 and we arrived in SB at 3:00 (that time change is a killer on the way back!). I got a little sleep in on the flight, which is a good thing because I spent most of the evening, and well into the night, getting ready for the garage sale that started this morning (more on that later). A busy week, to be sure, but what would life be without a little excitement??!?