Stampin with Joanna

My Incentive Trip Part 2

So, I think I was half way through Friday.

After the lovely 'make and take' session I headed up to the hospitality suite to spin the wheel for the day.  The free products I won on each day were:

Wednesday - Shimmer Paper

Thursday -  Antique brads

Friday - A roll of Daffodil delight striped grosgrain ribbon

Saturday - New product from the Upcoming Summer Mini! 

I shared a lunch platter with Jayne, Marelle and Gareth.  Cameron was playing golf on Dent Island with some of the other husbands.  He had a wonderful time, and enjoyed the fantastic views from the course.  Playing golf on an Island in the Whitsundays - it doesn't get much better than that!

The evening was shared with another group of demonstrators and their partners at the Marina Tavern.  Another fun night, then home to our third pillow gift:

 
An oversized purse (or clutch purse) - perfect for the Opera!  Or perhaps just doing the shopping at the local shops! 

We awoke to a fine and sunny Saturday.  And headed off on an excursion to Chalkies Beach and Whitehaven Beach on some oversized jet boats:

 

Here are some of us waiting on the docks:

 
The weather was much better and the journeys on the boats much shorter, so there were no sea sickness from anyone this time.  Just a lot of screaming (for joy!)

Chalkies Beach was magnificent.  We all disembarked here to go snorkelling.  Thankfully no stinger suits this time, and with visibility much better today, we saw some amazing coral, fish and marine life.

 

Here we are after our snorkel, I am enjoying a particularly great hair moment!!  Thank goodness for hats!

 

A quick trip over to Whitehaven Beach (you can see that in the distance above).  Apparently just voted the best uncommercialised beach in the world!  Its 98% silica sand is great for cleaning gold and silver jewellery too!  Here are some shots of Whitehaven:

 

This time I am wearing my hat!

 

 

Lunch was a sandwich on the foreshore and then a quick nap before meeting up with everyone for our final activity at 4.15pm.

A buggy rally around Hamilton Island, a bit like the Amazing Race with Stampin' Up! questions and free products thrown in for good measure!  Cool!

Here are the buggies, all lined up ready to go:

 
And our fantastic buggy team - The "Creative Young Jolly Team" this is our team name, it used the initials of our first names: Yvonne, Cameron, Joanna, Teresa! 

 

We raced around like lunatics for a little while, then calmed down and decided to enjoy the scenery!  Here we are overlooking the marina - and the Yacht Club where we enjoyed our final dinner, but we didn't know that at the time!

 

And just me and Cam:

 

Here is the view from One Tree Hill:

 

And Yvonne and I with Aaron Scott, who was giving away ink pads (yeah!):

 

The end of the rally was back at the Reef View Hotel where we discovered our dinner destination.  The food was outstanding as was the venue.  The Yacht Club is one of the most exclusive restaurants on Hamilton Island. 

Here we are with the other guests at our table:  Cameron, me, Donald and Ngaire Anderson, Jennifer and Dave Baugh (from the Home Office in America)

 

After dinner we were heading out for kareoke only to discover it had been cancelled, so we all headed back to the hotel where Harry Torres entertained us with his own kareoke anyway. Way to go Harry!  He is quite the crooner and sang "Fly me to the moon" beautifully:

 

And finally we made it back to our room to see what the final pillow gift would be:

 
Yes, the matching handbag for the purse we got last night!  Fantastic.  I love it!

Well that is almost the end of trip.  The plane ride home was uneventful, no celebrities on this flight (apart from a few of the top Stampin' up! demonstrators in Australia and New Zealand!!)  I sat with Vanessa Webb and Marelle Taylor and we shoved our husbands across the aisle from us.  They were an entertaining bunch!  Here they are all asleep!  Harry Torres is even asleep in the aisle behind!

 

And so endeth my Incentive Trip Story.  What a great trip! I hope you enjoyed it! 

If you would like to be on one of these yourself one day, why not become a Stampin' Up! demonstrator on my team.  Just ask me for more information:

Joanna Wassens      jocam_wassens@hotmail.com       0408 657 258

My Hamilton Island Incentive Trip

I know I have been back for over a week now, but thought for the sake of posterity, that I would still post about my Incentive Trip Experience.  This will be a long post, so grab a cuppa!

The trip was awesome!  Achieving the Incentive Trip was a dream come true.  And it lived up to my expectations!

One of the highlights of the trip for me happened on the flight TO Hamilton Island!  There was a celebrity on our flight!  GUY SEBASTIAN!  AHHHHHHHH!  Ok, I have calmed down now!  How cool is that! 

I was too polite to ask for a photo with him,  but I did manage a photo of him in the background.  Sorry to Ness and Yvonne  who were I was pretending to take a photo of:

 
Guy Sebastian, in the flesh!  He had a gig that night with one of the other corporate groups on the Island. He was awesome on stage too!

Here is the view from our hotel room, to the left:

 
And the other end of the beach, to the right:

 

Simply stunning!

We arrived on the Wednesday about lunch time and had time for a walk around.  We checked out the beach with Jayne and Gareth.  Jayne and I ended up with the bottoms of our pants wet after this shot, but we didn't mind - because we were on Hamilton Island on the Stampin' Up! Incentive Trip (5 days and 4 nights all expenses paid - how fabulous!)

 
Here is Cameron with Gareth, enjoying the Great outdoors:

 

We walked down the beach and found the dolphin pool (one of many on the island), a fondly remembered spot of Cameron's from a previous trip to Hamilton Island, in his youth.  He tried to convince us that Dolphin's did actually swim in this pool when he visited.  We remain unconvinced, even with the verification of his mother!  Anyway - the view was so tropical I had to take a picture:

 

Later that night was the opening dinner.  The food was nice but the company was even better.  Here are some shots of the night:

 

 
Me with Alisa and Emma.

We raced home in the rain, to find our pillow gift for the evening:

 
A dry bag filled with oranges, trail mix, water and 2 waterproof cameras - preparing us for our day trip to the Great Barrier Reef in the morning.  The weather was slightly dubious, and being the weather guru that he is, Cameron was well aware of the conditions.  He decided to politely refuse the trip and remain on dry ground for the day. A very wise move! 

The rest of us headed off to the Reef trip early in the morning.  When they started handing out the sick bags about 20 minutes into the trip (before the rough waves hit) I knew Cameron had done the right thing.  Over half the group enjoyed the facility of the barf bags in the 2 metre swell, with strong winds as an added bonus.  I, on the other hand, loved the trip to the Reef!  It was like a roller coaster, without warning.  Wooo Hooooo!  Of course, I couldn't really enjoy the trip in full spirit, because the suffering of those around me was so profound, AND, it takes 2 hours to get to the Reef, so it wasn't a short trip either.

Anyway, we made it the Reef and enjoyed snorkelling in our skin tight stinger suits.  Thank goodness I don't have a shot of that to share with you. My stinger suit was Blush blossom in colour and completely see through, leaving nothing to the imagination!  The snorkelling was great.  The sea sickness tablets were in hot demand on the trip home. 

Dinner that night was fantasitic!  A small group of us headed out and ended up at the gourmet pizza resturant on the island.  The food was outstanding and the company, wonderful.  We had a brilliant night!

AND there is always more to come with Stampin' Up! involved - another pillow gift, this time a lovely tin filled with stamps, inks and other supplies for tomorrows make and take session:

 

Here is my table friends at the session in the morning:

 

We had so much fun creating together, but it was a little humid and so Theresa and Jayne used the tissue from our window sheets to dab their sweating foreheads! Too funny:

 

This is taking such a long time to blog, so I will endeavour to add the second half of my trip tomorrow.

Happy Stamping!

I'm off to the Incentive Trip!

That's right.  I am off to Hamilton Island tomorrow for 5 fun filled days on the Stampin' Up! Incentive Trip.

Here are my travel documents and lovely bag tags, along with my tickets for spinning the prize wheel each day! AND the My first Incentive Trip pin!

 

I am very excited to be able to enjoy this time away with my husband and no. 1 supporter and to be able to share the trip with some lovely demonstrators and friends from Australia and New Zealand.

I may not be able to post while I am away - but I will make the effort if it is possible.

Happy Stamping!