Ahh the Memories!

We boarded US Airways in Bangor Maine to land under 2 hours later in Washington DC. This is what we saw as we headed to the bus area. Two Stampin’ Up! representatives holding Stampin’ Up! signs for us:

As we headed out to board our bus to the hotel, guess who I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with? Sara Douglas who is Shelli’s (our Co-founder and CEO) daughter. She was also boarding the bus with her hubby Sean. She was  a pleasure to chat with!

We were bused to our hotel the “Mayflower Renaissance” and this was our room:

We had the option of signing up for group dinners but I opted not to do that because I didn’t want to commit to having to be somewhere at a certain time due to all the sightseeing we would be doing. A few hours later, we decided to have supper at the hotel’s restaurant. We both picked roasted chicken. You will notice that the top skin is missing off of mine. My Mr. stole it. I wouldn’t eat it anyway…gross!

The supper was delish and so were the drinks! We then decided that we were going to go rest for the night as we were both quite tired. The minute I opened the door to our room, this is what I saw on our bed:

Stampin’ Up! is well known for their pillow gifts for the demonstrators when we attend events. Isn’t the rosette on the top of the box so pretty! And by the stamped sentiment I’m sure you can guess what may be in the box:

The boxes, which would equal several hundred, came from Georgetown Cupcake:

Of course I was so anxious to open the box that I shook it a little so some of the cupcakes shifted. That was one of those “duh” moments. These cupcakes were some of the best that I have ever eaten!

Stampin’ Up! also treated us to a wonderful breakfast buffet each morning and this decor was on each of our tables as we met each other. I had the pleasure of sitting with Christi and Dale Waite (Hi guys!) on day #2 and Dave and I both enjoyed our chatting!

On Day 2 of our arrival, we ventured out to explore. A bus picked us all up at the hotel and off we went touring. Dave and I had been to Washington two years prion and of course didn’t get to visit everything since there is so much to see here. This year we wanted to visit the monuments and the Smithsonian’s. We started out at the Lincoln Memorial:

Then off to the Korean War Memorial. This was a spooky wow! The soldiers in the field reflected off of the wall and it was so eery:

Next was the Vietnam Memorial Wall. So, so long and so many names. At the end of the wall is a stand which holds a book of all the names. We found our brother-in-law’s brother in the book:

This little guy was found along our path. He was so friendly and probably thought we had nuts for him. I think he was used to being fed:

The World War II Memorial was the special one for Dave as his Dad fought in WWII and was wounded in Okinawa. His Dad would never talk about it so Dave doesn’t know much of what took place there:

Two years ago when we visited DC, the Washington Memorial had some renovations taking place so we didn’t get to go up close. We did this time but by the time we trekked over to the monument, all tickets had been given out for the day. It was still a great place to visit. I loved all the flags!

We had lunch at a little food stand and shortly afterwards we head to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and National Air & Space Museum:

And as you may recall, I had foot surgery six weeks ago and I’m still recuperating so that was plenty of walking. I was in some pain and had to call it a day. We could not recall where we were supposed to board our bus at the Smithsonian’s so we attempted to start walking and lo-and-behold, our bus with the Stampin’ Up! logo on the windshield was stopped at a stop sign waiting to turn. We flashed our ID’s and he stopped and let us on. It was quite funny. Once we were dropped off at the hotel, we freshened up and had supper across the street at the Panache. I forgot to take photo’s but his is what the restaurant looks like:

We both decided to behave ourselves and order chicken caesar salad’s along with some really good bread and drinks. We then decided to call it a night to go rest my throbbing foot. When we arrived to our room….voila, another pillow gift. I was beginning to love my pillow gifts. This one is something new to Stampin’ Up! that will be available in the 2014 Holiday Supplement in a few weeks!

Another quite rosette adorns the package. In the package I found the Many Merry Stars Simply Created Kit AND the Many Merry Stars stamp set…..EEEK! Love it!

The following morning, I was meeting up with my 2nd Upline Linda Gutierrez, sideline Diane Lethbridge and Linda’s teammate Gina Coffelt. It was so good to meet Linda in person as I chatted with her a few times on the phone when I first joined and she helped me quite a bit to get started:

Jamie Hurley and I. We met on Facebook (Hi Jamie!):

And we bumped into Sara & Sean once again:

On Day 3, Dave and I spent most of the day at the Smithsonian Zoo:

We saw some very unique animals and some quite familiar. We were disappointed that quite a few were “out”. This was a neat bird that reminded us of our pheasants and partridges in Maine:

Aren’t these pink flamingo’s just priceless?

We were totally exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel so we skipped across the street to Subway and got sandwiches for the room and this is what awaited us in the room once we got there:

The final pillow gift: