All good things must come to an end and so as CHA wrapped up I have a few things to finish taking care of! Like pictures and catalog picking up and pictures! That's right I was so busy looking and seeing and doing at CHA the only real pictures I got were when someone took the camera from me and snapped away. Thursday I set out to take pictures of some of my favorite things from the show.

One of my favorites was this gorgeous dress from "I love to create" , the wings, the detail it was simply breathtaking. As I mentioned before designers from CHA had a "dress form" contest and the dresses were amazing but this one was my hands down favorite!

I didn't have much time to nose around the show floor on Thursday for there was a brief run to the Supershow. It was being held in conjunction with the jewelry show this year and that's where the Fiskateers decided to hold their meet up! It was great connecting with my orange clad pals! Plus our ever generous leads had orange bags of treasures for us!

(Ok looking closely at this photo now...notice how Mandi and I are the tallest ones and not only right smack dab in the middle but in "orange and green" lol and thanks Karen for the photo btw.)

After the hugging and gabbing died down it was back over to the show to pick up the last of the catalogs I needed and say goodbyes to some of my friends working in booths. PLUS I had to run by the Photocentric booth and grab my stampmaker and packs. Good thing I had the BIG tote with me cause it was over full. In fact Madison from Echo Park saw me dragging the thing and grabbed it from me for an aisle or two to give me a break (thanks Madison :)

At the close of the show I met up with Kimberlee and Joanne because we had plans to go to the Splitcoast Stampers "Cupcakes and Cocktails" party that evening. We all knew we needed some protein before eating sweets and went to Gibsons for some of their "sliders." Gibsons is a fabulous steakhouse and their sliders are anything but the traditional kind. These were tender chunks of filet between two of the cutest little buns imaginable served up with a huge basket of fries (yum) and the cutest little ketchup bottle that came home with me for my ketchup loving husband! We have a family joke about how much he LOVES the stuff and so I knew it would be the perfect souvenir for him. (Before you all start going "oooh Betsy stole the ketchup bottle"...they send them home with you!!!!)

We got to the party with about 20 minutes to spare and spent the time chatting and trying to stay awake. All of us were really tired but excited to see some more friends! After being welcomed by the Splitcoast staff family and handed fabulous goodie bags filled with Flower soft, stamps from several different companies and coupons and other fun stuff we were met with

very yummy cupcakes! So we ate, drank, and were merry :) Only water for this chick but I was slowly coming around and getting a sugar buzz from the cupcakes..lol. Towards the end of the evening we found a couple of bar stools to sit on and a gal came up to talk to us. A few minutes later she introduced me to her sister.

Her sister Joy was from Texas, and not just any part the very city my daughter was in at the moment. She was there on a mission trip and when Joy found out about that she got so excited and wanted to know her name so she could pray for her and before our conversation ended she had given me her contact information telling me "I know I'm not "mom" but you are here in Illinois and I'm 10 minutes from her, if she needs anything, or gets hurt, or just gets home sick I can be there in 10 minutes and see how I can help." My daughter had been really on my heart that morning and to "just so happen" to meet someone not only offering to pray for her, but offering to help her if she needed it was overwhelming! It was the perfect ending to a rather exciting week. Just like a big hug from God.