An Awfully Big Adventure... Day 2... Freckles On Tour...

...in America! Tis a fair few years since Freckles went on Tour... but he is back in his starring role as adventurer extraordinaire and joined us at Ranger U today. Freckles has been on tour with me all over the world for the past 15 years... he has been quite the explorer from sampling cocktails in Mexico (he got sloshed), kayaking in Antigua (he got wet) right through to riding a sheep in North Yorkshire (he tried to eat it)... so today was his debut at Ranger... and here is a photo of him looking very cute being cuddled by lovely Claudine Hellmuth (yes, I was fizzing with excitement at actually being in a class with Claudine, she is a brilliant teacher and a right good laugh!)




Freckles decided that I wasn't safe with a paintbrush loaded with Multi Medium (and hey, this time I didn't turn my top into an embellishment lol)... so he took over guarding it...





And he wanted his photo taken with his favourite new drink...




Oh and of course, he wanted a reminder of his time at Ranger so had a photo with THE file! **yes, I have gone completely tonto... blame the excitement**




Today (tis still Saturday here) was amazing... we spent the morning with Claudine and did loads of cool techniques that I have never tried before... image transfer being my new favourite... oh and stamping with Claudine's fab stamps... I haven't tried these before and now.. erm... I need them all lol We had the legendary square pizza for lunch... corrrrr... it is the best pizza I have ever had... and I just want to say a maaahhhooooosive thank you to Mario... that guy is a true star... bringing Dunkin' Donuts and coffee for breakfast... I had never tried a Dunkin' Donut til yesterday and corrrrrr.. they is lush... bringing fresh coffee through the day... and generally making sure we are all fed and watered... here he is with some dim blonde bird...




This afternoon was Distress with Tim... wall to wall tags and Distress products and very inky paws... I was in my element just sitting there getting inky and soaking up all the tips and "how to's" that Tim was showing us... oh and... here's a pic of Candy, Tim and Linda (and me)... check out the t-shirts we are wearing... Candy made them!!! Wow, they are fabulous, seriously cool and an amazing keepsake... I feel very honoured and incredibly chuffed that Candy went to all this trouble to make one of these unique and very special gifts for me... so, a maaahoooosive thank you to Candy too!




So... I didn't really get chance to talk about the start to my adventure because I was bone tired last night... I don't want to waffle on alarmingly so will keep it brief... the flight here was great, we set off early, landed early... thank heavens because there was an almighty storm brewing and tornado warnings for New Jersey. As we were coming into land we flew past the iconic New York skyline... I was awestruck... and then ever so slightly worried because there were huge forks of lightning bashing down around the skyscrapers. The landing was... erm... bumpy... like tummy flipping turbulance... but... we made it. The plan was that I was arriving first, followed an hour later by Candy, then Yvonne and Cheryl and Lisa were due in and finally Linda was due in at 16.30. We had a shuttle booked to take us to Tinton Falls but as the saying goes... best laid plans... because of the horrendous weather all flights were severely delayed or cancelled. So, the plans we made kind of went a bit pear shaped... and I ended up hanging around Newark airport for...erm... 10 hours. I did have a moment after about 2 hours of frustratingly trying to find out information and being sent from one place to another... but then I stumbled across a little shop that was selling Diet Coke and Cheesy Chester Cheeto's and everything just got a whole lot more bearable lol ... Finally the girls arrived during the evening - poor Candy's case went AWOL but thankfully she has been reunited with it - and we made it to the hotel at about 1.30am. The thing is, a few delays and hanging about at an airport are nothing compared to what some of the poor peeps who have been affected by the tornado's have been experiencing - it kind of put things into perspective when I saw the news and the size of some of those twisters...

Anyways... I have the Sunday Stamper post ready to write up and publish so I will stop waffling now and say... thanks for looking... TTFN!

Hels x