St George, Utah Trip 2024

I just returned about a week ago from a 5-day trip to St George, Utah! I attended an event hosted by my demo friend Ronda Wade.

It was a phenomenal trip, and the main point was to have a gathering place for fellow demonstrators to hang out and enjoy each other’s company. That’s exactly what happened!

My mom went on the trip with me (we love to travel together!) and we flew into the Las Vegas airport on Wednesday morning. We then grabbed our rental car (after a brief one hour hiccup), then drove to the Hoover Dam, through the Lake Mead Recreational Area, to the Valley of Fire State Park, and finally to our hotel in St George.

Mom & I on the plane | Hoover Dam | First time in Arizona | Valley of Fire State Park | First time in Utah

Thursday morning, mom and I drove about 1.5 hours away with a group of demos to a town called Kanab to tour Stampin’ Up!’s manufacturing facility. It was SO cool! I signed an NDA so I couldn’t take any pictures inside the production floor and I have to keep my lips sealed… but I did get to cut some of the rubber stamps! So, four stamp sets were cut by me… so cool!

After the tour, mom and I drove 5 minutes away to the park where Stampin’ Up!’s excess rubber has been made into playground padding!

Mom and I then headed “up north” to drive through Zion National Park. It was both of our first times visiting a National Park!!! It was absolutely breathtaking there. And we saw wildlife (buffalo and a big horn) so that was cool too!

We then headed into the town nearby to do some souvenir shopping, and then made our trek back to the hotel so I could get ready for our opening reception as part of Ronda’s event. That reception was so fun, and it was nice to just gather and chat with others! We then headed to the lobby to play games as a big group until about 11 at night!

On Friday, we started the morning with some crafting time together! Ronda put together a class for us using one of the new kits and 5 alternate projects.

Afterwards, we had lunch and then did our card swapping! There were 37 total swappers (if I counted correctly). You can see the swap cards below:

The center card in the photo above is the one I made! It is a Magic Color Slider card. My teamie Alicia Markfort shared how to make these during our August team gathering and I just had to make them for my swaps!!

Friday continued with (a lot!) of time in the pool, hanging out and relaxing, and then finally, we went to the Tuacahn Amphitheater with a group of demos to see a production of “Frozen.” I thought it was so cool to see Frozen in the desert! 😂

Saturday had no morning plans, so mom and I slept in, went to the Cracker Barrel for lunch — we have one in Minnesota but it’s not super close to where we live so we took advantage of going to one only a few minutes from the hotel! — and then of course went shopping (my favorite!).

Then we headed back to the hotel, hit the pool, and once it started to downpour, we went back to the room and packed up as much as we could.

After packing, I got ready for our final group event – a Dinner Reception. We took a group photo together and I got pictures with some of my friends at the event. It was hard to believe how quickly this trip went by!

Ronda did a phenomenal job putting on this event, and having a gathering place for us all. She, of course, spoiled us with gifts all weekend long too! You can see some of them in the pictures above but I took some more pictures when I got home too:

We got three wooden crates with candy and snacks inside, a new kit, name tag, a frame with my name, a neon sign, a bracelet with my initial on it and a lunch box!

It was an incredible event and I’m excited for next time!