Pampered Chef National Conference 2008

WOW I had a blast at Nationals! I learned so much information, and we learned about all of our new fall products, and our new recruiting incentives! Despite getting an average of 5 hours of sleep per night, with two of those nights getting only 3 hours of sleep or less, I really had a great time, and the money spent was WELL worth the classes I took and the information I learned. I'll give a little breakdown of everything we did, and try to get some pictures included, if I can figure that out.

Tuesday night, I went to bed about 11:30. Got up at 3 am. I don't remember sleeping that night. Lol I drove down to Amarillo for my flight leaving at 6:55 am. I met up with my best friend, Melody, gave hugs, checked in and talked like giddy school girls until take off. In the air, we both tried to get some sleep, but our flight to Dallas/Fort Worth was less than an hour. We had a 2 hour layover in the DFW aiport, and there we met up with Melody's other best friend, and one of my now good friends, Melissa. We picked up some breakfast, walked around, browsed a book store. Before we knew it we were on our way to Chicago. None of us slept. I tried to read, but found to my dismay, that I started feeling nauseous. A quick 2 hours later, and we were IN Chicago! It was completely umbelieveable, the aireal view of the city. Tall buildings everywhere, and we flew over Lake Michigan when we coming in to land. It was just the most beautiful thing. I was in awe of the greatness of this city! After we landed, we ran to the potty, and met up with our Director, also named Melissa. We got our luggage, and got a taxi! Woohoo, first time in a taxi! It was nothing special really, pretty much the same as what I've seen on TV. Thank goodness for television, huh? LOL We drove 30 plus minutes to where we were staying. The Sheraton. And wow, what a hotel. Here's a shot of the hotel, and a view from our room. The water you see there is Lake Michigan.




After we were checked into our hotel, and after we unpacked a little and got more organized, we walked down a block or two (and these are REAL city blocks. Like NYC blocks. Not 4-houses-long-blocks, like in small towns) and we ate at a Deli, which was de-lish! Later that night, once our 5th girl joined us, we walked down to Volare, an Italian restaurant hidden by many tall buildings. I have never had any Italian, as good as this! Ok, it beats out Olive Garden and Johnny Carino's! It was the best! I ordered Risotto Fattori,which translates to "Risotto with diced chicken breast, peas and a four cheese sauce". A $16 plate. I just drank water that night. Lol. Here's some pictures from that night.











After Volare, we walked down to Navy Pier. Navy Pier, as described by Wikipedia, is a "...3,300-foot long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan. The pier was built in 1916 at a cost of $4.5 million; it was a part of the Plan of Chicago developed by architect and city planner Daniel Burnham and his associates. As Municipal Pier #2 (Municipal Pier #1 was never built), Navy Pier was planned and built to serve as a mixed-purpose piece of public infrastructure. Its primary purpose was as a cargo facility for lake freighters, and warehouses were built up and down the pier. However, the pier was also designed to provide docking space for passenger excursion steamers, and in the pre-air conditioning era parts of the pier, especially its outermost tip, were designed to serve as cool places for public gathering and entertainment. The pier even had its own streetcar. It was known as a romantic spot for young lovers..." They have firework displays on Wednesday and Saturday nights. It was really, one of the best desplays of fireworks I've ever seen. Here's a couple pictures from our night at Navy Pier. At one point, before the fireworks began, we were sitting down, all laughing and talking, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, a RAT comes running out of the bushes towards us! We all screamed and jumped and I guess our vocals scared him because he flipped a 180 and ran back into the bushes. LOL. Ok, here's the pictures. The first picture here, is a picture taken off Wikipedia. I believe that our hotel is the one thats furthest to the right or the one, right above that one.









That night we crashed about 1 AM. We all got up about 5 AM to start getting for Day 1 of Nationals! We had to pick up our registration packets at 6:30, and we had a first-timers orientation class at 7:15 am. Here is a picture of us, wide awake and all pretty on Day 1 at the butt crack of dawn!





After orientation, we had the privelage to drive to the Pampered Chef Home Office, in Addison, IL for a tour! I didn't get many pictures from there, but my 2 other girlfriends snapped a jillion pictures and haven't gotten the rest to me yet. But we were able to see some of the older PC products, we toured the test kitchen where they create new recipes, we got to see the makeup room/laundry room, we saw the kitchen where they make all of the dvds that are sent out to us each new season. Basically, they just demonstrate the new products and recipes in there. We were able to go up to the next level, and tour Doris Christopher's office. Doris is the founder of Pampered Chef. She is a wonderful lady and we all got a picture with her! But that picture is on another camera. We also toured Marla Gottschalk's office. She is the Senior Vice President of Pampered Chef. I left her my business card (hey, everyone was. LOL). We went up to the next level and we were able to view all the conference rooms. There's a room dedicated to all of the consultant who've reached $1 million in Career Sales. There was a room for the $2 million in Career Sales. There was a room for all of the TPC Achievers. Those are the Top Performance Cluster Achievers. Those are they, that achive the highest sales, recruits, and 3 other categories in a one year's time. Those people just blow me away. Their dedication and love for what they do, is just phenomenal.



After our Home Office tour, we headed back to the conference center, ate lunch, and headed to our first class at 1pm. My first class was called Cooking Show Live in Action with Matt King. I learned SO MUCH and took some great notes! There wasn't a time when I wasn't jotting something down. He was an awesome speaker, and I think he's my new mentor. He's been with the company for 6 years (I think??). He's a director, has dozens and dozens of recruits, and yes. He's not on "my team", if you know what I mean. But thats ok! That makes it even easier to talk to him! I did approach him after class to ask him some questions. And later on, I found out that he is actually in my PC family. All that means, is that we're under the same National Executive Director. So, like my upline director Melissa, would be his "sister" or they're possible "cousins". But we're related, which is pretty neat. Here's a picture of me standing next to his picture. I did get a picture WITH him, but that picture hasn't been sent to me yet.




After class, we attended Day 1 of General Session. Day 1, we learned what our new fall products would be, which was WOW exciting! I can hardly wait till then! There were giveaways and music and dancing, and just, wow. There were camera men, photographers everywhere.... We got our photo taken a few times and a shot of us on video too! So we'll see if we made it into the Conference video and newsletter! Here's some pictures we took, on Day 1 during General Session. The first picture is some of the staging decorations. Very professional and nice looking!









And here's a picture of our founder, Doris Christopher.



That night we ate at Giordani's. REAL Chicago Pizza! And it was the best pizza I have ever had! It was made with REAL mozzerella cheese! The wait was over an hour, but SO worth it! They had a water fountain in front, so we passed the time with taking pictures. So here's some more pictures. Lol




After eating the best pizza ever, we headed back to the hotel and passed out about 11:30pm. On day 2, we slept in till about 6:30 am, if you call that sleeping in. Lol Day 2 started with General Session at 9am. Ok, this was an embarrassing moment. The Pampered Chef has their own dance team and singers. And during one of the opening songs, they were singing a song to the tune of YMCA. It was called TPC Way. During one of the bridges of the song, a couple of the dancers actually came out into the audience and literally dragged myself and Melissa, my upline director, onto the stage. I was seriously having an anxiety attack. Lol Ok well it felt like it. I was so embarrassed dancing up there with the attractive male dancers, and shortly after walking on-stage, I became dsylexic and I lost all sense of "normal" dance moves. Lol I wasn't sure WHAT I was doing, but apparently my girlfriends all got lots of pictures, and the cameramen put me up on the big screen too. Ahhhhh! Incredibly humiliating! Ok, I'll share some pictures.









I had 2 classes on Day 2. Phone Courage and Abundant Bookings. Very good classes. I learned a lot and took some good notes. Here's some more pictures. I know you're loving all the photos! Lol





Also that night, we had a banquet dinner in honor of our Senior Executive Director, Teresa Brown. We were told to wear sparkly clothes or makeup. I borrowed this shirt, but think it looks good on me.



Ok, on to Day 3! On Day 3 started with my last class. It was called Be A Master Seller. I LOVED that class! Great ideas and very useful to me! All of the classes I took were very beneficial to me and my business. I felt that the money I spent on registration, was WELL worth the knowledge I learned while there. Here's some more pictures from General Session Day 3. (I forgot my apron at the hotel, so I'm not wearing mine, which wasn't mandatory, but still cute.) Let me tell you this.... The more universal you are in your group/team, the more attention you get from the photographers and camera men. We did get our picture taken a few times with our aprons and purple pom-poms, and had a video clip taken as well. So we'll see if we make it thru the editing. Lol




Overall, I had an awesome time at nationals. It was all very exhausting, but so exhilirating! We learned some fantastic recruting incentives, promotion incentives, and of course, we learned all about our new fall products! WOW is all I can say. Lol yes I can spill the beans, so if anyone is interested, shoot me an email, or give me a call, and I'll clue you in!

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And yes, Jayson and the kids were all alive and well, and no the house was not upside down when I came home. I was pleasantly surprised and thrilled to find a somewhat decently clean house. The kids all missed me and were happy to see me. As was Jayson.

I'm happy to be home, and I'm looking forward to Nationals 2009!!