Bula from Fiji!

The weather was a bit rainy but that didn’t stop anyone from seeing the local offerings. Shopping, eating, shopping, ice cream….it’s certainly not a healthy vacation 🙂 We bought a Bula Bus pass and rode around the city, getting off here and there. It’s pretty pricey to eat here but we found Mama’s pizza and it was freshly handmade & delish!

Wednesday we rented our driver, Kit Kat again. He drove us out past Suva, about 45 minutes away, to a gorgeous white sand beach. We had a private cabana hut and patch of paradise. There was a camera crew in view filming Beauty and the Geeks reality show, supposedly on a deserted island lol
After the beach he dropped us off at a Chinese place where we had an amazing feast!

We had our General Session meeting last night. Stampin’ Up Arranged a lovely welcome reception in the breezy lobby with live music. As our session began, Fijian dancers entertained us.

The guests/husbands received a thank you gift in one of the new wood mount stamp cases. A Survival kit, and Matt was most impressed that a Snickers bar for in there!

The guys/guests also got a “Dude, You’re Welcome” boxed stamp set.

The demos were thrilled to get the new catalog and a 12×12 paper stack of the new Prints patterns! Then we listened to the corporate team giving company updates.

When we got back to the room, another Pillow gift arrived!

The hat for me, the backpack for Matt!

Today we went into town for a service project at the local hospital here in Fiji. This will take the place of our make and take time this year. I’ll admit when they first suggested it and I knew we would be giving up stamping time, I was a bit grumbly. It was optional to go but I’m so glad we did.

It really helped me to appreciate our hospitals in the states. The waiting room was filled with people and no air conditioning. Even though 200 of us invaded their area, every person smiled as we worked.

We split into teams of yard or painting. We had to remove all the blue paint off the poles with sandpaper down to the silver metal, then repaint them. ( that was the team I was on, team Grit:). Lots of poles!
Shelli and Sterling and family were right in there, working just as hard as anyone.

Matt was on the Green Team, grabbing a weed wacker. No mowers, so very tedious to get the grounds looking good. Lots of rakes, weed pullers and garbage pick up.

A team also painted the front of the hospital!
It touched my heart that so many of the demonstrators took time from their vacation to work so hard. As I write this, many are still there working right up til the last bus brings them back.

No stamping to show you yet, we turned our swaps in but haven’t gotten them back yet. On Saturday we have a share event and 10 demos will be presenting ideas!

By the way, if you tried to call our toll free Stamping School line, it’s not transferring here. We had forwarded the lines but it won’t connect here in Fiji. So email us if you need help at Info@stampingschool.com

I’m off for now, switching to vacation mode!

Linda

(Less than 1% of all demonstrators earn the incentive trip each year so I am so very grateful to my team and customers!)