Dis Diva Trip III

[BillyFan]

You're right about time flying. After Christmas, those two months went by really fast!
I can't wait for more TR!!!!

 

[grizbuzz]

Tuning in from Switzerland...

Do you have a German translation by chance? Not that I could read it. Just wondering...

 

[lulubelle]

Ready for the next installment.

 

[wendylady36]

Ready for the next installment.

Me too!

 

[mommaU4]

Me too!

Me three!!

 

[farmgirljen]

Your getting me excited- I want to hear more!!!!!!!!

 

[Stacerita]

Now the trip is getting closer. Many trips to Party City, Target, and Michael's were made in order to get all that I needed for the trip and the meet and greet party. It seemed like I was at one of those stores daily. Time was at a premium. I only had limited time to get packed and ready it seemed. The night before the trip was here and I felt like there was no way I was ready. Like it or not, I had to be.

The Thursday morning of the trip I was up dark and early. Had to get ready for work since I didn't have that day off, and still pack my gear in the car before dropping Taylor off at school. It was a lot to do in a short amount of time really. But someone how I managed. And still found a smidge of time to eat breakfast before I headed out the door. So I was ready for work, all packed, and had Taylor in the car.


Saying bye to the house for a few days.

My overstuffed car ready to go.

I barely slowed down for Taylor to get out of the car. I know that because she looked at me and said "What?, am I supposed to tuck and roll?" Guess she expected me to come to a complete stop. Some kids huh? So we said our byes and gave the instructions of when I am gone stuff. She was actually a bit happy to have me gone for a few days. Little did she know that I special ordered her a caypo (something for her guitar) to arrive while I was gone. Once she was out of the car, doors locked and I was back on my way. But before I could arrive at the Hojo, I had one more stop to make.....the office!

So I arrive like always but much happier knowing that I would be out soon and on my way. Just had one small project to finish and that was all. Just had to submit some data to the state and wait for them to approve it. Was able to send the info to the state within 30 mins of arriving. So as I waited I checked email and sent a few text to my crew. Checked the response from state.....FAIL! My data was rejected. UGH!!!! I must have worked on that data for a few hours, and cleaned it all up to resend. I resubmit it, and FAIL! WTH??? Going over it with a fine tooth comb come to find out that another department who submits their work to my department sucks. So now I had to clean up their mess. The CEO had make it clear that I couldn't leave until this was taken care of. If it was not sent this day, we would be fined daily till it was done. No fair!! Sure I could have sent it back to the originating department, but I had to do the final send and couldn't risk them not sending it in time for me to leave.

I worked my hiney off trying to finish this project. All the while bitoching because the mistakes weren't made by my department, and really being pissed because the problems were all from prior to me coming on board as director. But, because I so totally rock, I got it done and was out of here!!!

I hopped into my car, and headed on up the 5 to the Hojo!

Next up.....set up!

 

[cccdisney]

More! More!

 

[Stacerita]

So now I have left work and I am flying up the 5 to get to the Hojo! For no particular reason I am blasting "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas.

And say, oh oh oh oh
Say, oh oh oh oh
(Yo, yo)
Turn up the radio
Blast your stereo
Right now
This joint is fizzlin
It's sizzlin
Right

While driving and rocking out, I am trying to also get some texts out and get a hold of the meet and greet crew. I didn't want to get there and not be able to start right away. I roll up to the Hojo's and head right to the front desk to check in and get things squared away.

Now to back track just a bit. Last year upon returning from the Hojo, I developed a nasty rash over my body. At first it was thought I had been bit by bed bugs, but turned out to be a contact dermatitis and me being allergic to the soap in the sheets. Spent a few emails and phone calls with Hojo to clear up some things. Lucky, they do have a different detergent they could use for me. So prior to returning this year, I called ahead to make sure my room was made up with the sheets washed in the milder detergent and that the rollaway was also in the room with the sheets. I had made two calls to make sure its down, and management called me back a few time to verify what I wanted. I was glad they took my request seriously and were able to accomodate my room.

So I get to the front desk and check in. Right away they knew who I was and let me know that the "specail room" was ready. Thank goodness. While there I found out Katie already had the key to the conference room so I didn't have to worry about that. I did pick up one of the candy bags before I got back into the car. Damn! That candy bag was heavy. Just so everyone knows, it was one of the huge Ikea bags.

Instead of going to the room to drop my stuff off, I decided just to drive around to the back where the conference room is and get started. There wasn't a ton of time between then and when the party was to start. I sent a text to Katie to see where she was, and also sent to Jane and Cristabel. I was hoping to get Katie first so she could unlock the door. Thankfully when I got there, one of the front desk guys saw me outside the room and offered to unlock it for me. Wooohooo! I'm in!

I get into the room and start moving stuff about similar to how we had it last year. Within a few minutes, Cristabel and Katie both show up. Sweet! Now its time to really get things started. We move tables into place, and get things out of the storage room too. Jane gets there, and now we are on a roll. Decorations are getting put up, the tables are being set, pizza is being ordered, and the room is starting to come together. Lucky for us Amy Sue stops by to give us a hand.

Now, there were only a few snaffus while doing set up for the party. One of them being the red tubs I borrowed from my brother. He loaned them to me no problem, loaded them into my car with no problem, but failed to tell me he hadn't cleaned them since his last party. The top tub was a little dirty, no big deal. The tub underneath...ack! It had nasty beer water that had been sitting in it for a while. Why wouldn't he have cleaned that out or at least let me know.

Normally not an issue at home because I would just hose it off. But there is no hose in the ice room at the hotel. Katie and I did the best we could in the little bathroom to clean it, then just had to go with the flow. Thank goodness for plastic bags.

There were a few others who stopped by to offer help, and I just can't remember who they were. But thank you!

Once everything was set and decorated, we locked up and everyone went to their rooms to change and get ready for the party. Cristabel and I both still had our cars on the conference room side and needed to move our cars to the other side by our rooms. So off we went. I scored with getting a parking spot right outside the doors to our building!!! Grab my bags and started unloading my car.

Headed right to the "special" room and found our totally awesome door.

Thanks to my totally awesome Amy Sue, we had a great door! Granted, the room was near the elevator, but we were the last room so Im not sure how many people got a chance to see it. It really was a great door.


Next up....getting ready for the Meet & Greet in Calcutta.

 

[sahbushka]

Great door!

SarahMay

 

[disney-inspired]

 

[cccdisney]

Yay! Can't wait for more!

 

[Stacerita]

Great door!

SarahMay

It was all thanks to Amy Sue!

 

[wdwr]

Wonderful so far. Thank goodness I'm not too far behind. My "daily emails" from the dis on this thread and the trip chatting threads are not coming in as suggested.

I'm all caught you now, feel free to make another addition to the report today.

 

[Stacerita]

OK, so I am going to totally try to get another bit posted either tonight or early tomorrow. Can't believe I am slacking this bad.

 

[wendypooh22]

waiting.....

 

[Stacerita]

waiting.....

Keep your panties on....I'm working on it.

 

[rentayenta]

Keep your panties on....I'm working on it.

Panties? Who is wearing panties?

 

[Stacerita]

Thankfully my parking spot was right outside the door to the building. It made it so much easier to grab my stuff and get it upstairs. By this time I was already pretty exhausted since I worked all day and worked on the party set up. And I was hot and sweaty....but not in a good way.

I walk into our room and there was luggage everywhere. I think we all sort of walked in and just dropped our stuff waiting to see where each other wanted to claim as "ours".

Lucky for our room, all of us are easy going and pretty laid back. We all sort of picked our areas to put our luggage and junk. Once we all did that it was fine. Just thinking back to the volume of luggage in our room alone is kinda frightening. Seriously.

So for those who don't know, I like to room with as many people in a room as possible. For our room this year we had five Divas sharing this room. My roommates were Amy Sue, Steph, Deb and Cristabel. I adored sharing a room with these ladies. They were all neat, tidy and bathed regularly. My standards aren't that high.

The plan was to go to the room, put my stuff away, get ready for the party and then get back to the conference room as soon as I could. Well, that didn't exactly happen. Instead after we got into the room, we moved our stuff into our areas then sat down and talked for way too long. That is one of the things I love about rooming with lot of ladies, talking.

Finally we realized the party was going to start soon so we got into "go" mode and started getting ready. Then for about 15 mins we were all running around and getting our act together. On went the jammies and a few swipes of deoderant. A little freshening up and then we were out the door. But by this time we were a little late.

Next up....Meet and Greet!!

 

[Stacerita]

We finally left the room and headed to the party. We were all dressed in our jammies ready to go. I decided it would be funny to wear a nightie instead of my regular jammies. At home I usually bum around in pajama pants and tshirts, but since we are having a girls night, I thought nightie would be silly and fun. So I totally rocked it. Others choose matching jammie sets, pig tails and fluffy slippers. We all looked hot!! So we walk arcoss the Hojo's complex to get to the conference room. Now its time to party.


Makin my connection as I enter the room
Everybody's chillin as I set up the groove
Pumpin' up the volume with this brand new beat
Everybody's dancin and they're dancin for me
I'm your operator, you can call anytime
I'll be your connection to the party line

I'm comin' up so you better you better get this party started
I'm comin' up so you better you better get this party started


Since we were on the later side, almost everyone else was already there. The room looked great and everyone looked so adorable in their jammies. I must say that the theming looked good and everyone seemed pleased with it. Makes up for all the nay sayers who didn't want the Slumber Party theme to happen.



Jane kicked off the evening with a really fun ice breaker.

The type was totally small and I couldn't play along. I didn't bring my glasses to the party. Oh well.

I knew what the game was and in talking with the others I could tell everyone was having a great time.

After the ice breaker we went right into dinner. Pizza was really good.

There were plenty of drinks flowing for everyone. No one went thirsty.

Lots of mingling went on and the candy buffet was opened.


Candy buffett

Cristabel made some really great bags for us to get our candy with.

After dinner we started the pillowcase exchange. Like the year before we did it similar to a dirty santa, but in a nicer way. All the ladies seemed pleased with the pillowcase that they ended up with.


The wrapped pillowcases

After a while some of the ladies started heading out. The rest were put to work to help us get the room cleaned up and back in order. Thanks to the Divas who helped with this. Its always fun to party, but cleaning up....not so much.