Before I do anything else, I want to correct an error that I made.  Fontwerks stamps are proudly made in the USA.  My apologies to Kah-Mei and to Fontwerks for that.  I also want to say a big thank you to Kah-Mei for driving from Vancouver, BC to our house in Corvallis to ensure that the Ali Travel Stamps got to us as quickly as possible so we could get those out to our customers who were waiting for them.  How’s that for tremendous customer service?!?!?   THANK YOU KAH-MEI!!!!!  I can’t wait to see the stamps she is creating just for us for the August kit!    

I’m back in NH at my inlaws after a great weekend with my college roommates.  We realized it had been 10 years since we were all together and that was at Brigid’s wedding so not exactly quality time.  The last time we really just got together to hang out was 3 years before that!  It’s so amazing to be around people with whom it’s as if no time has passed at all.  I just got a call though from Helene and she is STILL waiting to get out of Boston Logan airport.  We was supposed to be leaving at 2pm and she might be able to get on a 9:30 flight.  IF that works out she’ll fly to Philly, then to Cleaveland where she’ll rent a car and drive 3 hrs to Dayton.  She should be home by 4am.  I think I passed my bad travel karma to her!

My internet woes continued throughout the weekend.  I ended up booking us at a hotel that didn’t have wifi!  Who doesn’t have wifi in this day and age?!?!?  They had ethernet in the rooms.  Mine didn’t work.  I spent 45 minutes on the phone with tech support when they finally figured out my room’s cable didn’t work.  They sent up a new one.  That one didn’t work.  They brought another new one.  That one didn’t work and that was when they figured out that it was the “outlet” to the ethernet that didn’t work.  They pulled the ethernet cable out of the wall, connected it to my computer and that finally worked.  But in the meantime almost 2 hrs had passed and I wasted all the free time I had to work on Saturday.  I’m surprised there’s still hair on my head after that episode as I was ready to tear it all out! 

Today I figured at least I would be on the bus with wifi so I could use that hour and 20 minutes to catch up on email.  No wifi on the return bus.  Just MASH on the tv.  I think I would much rather have had wifi!

My wonderful hubby just found a way for me to get on my computer at his parents’ house without using wifi (hooked up to their cable and am sitting in their laundry room but at least I’m on my computer!) and he got my Outlook to stop shutting down every few minutes and leaving replies hanging in the outbox (a problem since CHA).  I am one happy camper now!  Just got the kids down and I can now spend as long as it takes to get caught up!  YAY!!!  I think my karma is on an upward trajectory!

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while or if you know me than you know that I don’t have the best of travel luck, to put it mildly.  Apparently though, if I travel with Ali, she seems able to counteract my bad travel mubo jumbo.  I wish she was with me now!

Both our families live on the East coast and one of my brothers is in the UK.  If we want to see everyone, we are the ones who travel.  When we made the reservations for our trip back in March, it seemed like a perfect time to travel.  The July kits would all be out in the mail, I could have everything set for August, etc. I could have a day on the ground after returning from CHA to leisurely get the kids packed and myself re-packed as we didn’t need to leave the house the next day until 10:30.  Perfect.

Then real life took over.  As I mentioned earlier, the stamps just arrived last Monday.  Ali and I got back to my house at 1:30 am on Monday night (so Tuesday morning).  I got 3 hrs of sleep and then got busy until 10 that night working with Trish and Melissa to get all the orders out that had been waiting on the second round of stamps.  Then I started working on getting us ready for the trip. 

After another night of 3 hrs, I checked and answered all of my emails and figured I could answer anything that came in throughout the day the following morning.  We got to the airport and the security lines were the worst I’d ever seen (the week before Ali and I had breezed through) so that we even though we had 2 hrs at the airport, we barely had time to get the kids fed.  We had a connection in Chicago.  Next time I book a flight with the kids can someone please remind me NOT to book through Chicago?!?!?  They didn’t announce our connecting flight on the plane.  The departures board didn’t have our connecting flight.  Upon finding a gate agent we discovered that was because our flight was cancelled!  After an hr in line we got booked on the earliest flight out we could get.  5:40 pm the next night.  Nice.

The fortunate side of being in Chicago was that my cousin lives there.  She came and got us and our kids had a blast playing with her little ones.  Now if only we had had extra clothese with us, etc… 

In the morning I sat down to get busy on my email but my cousin couldn’t find her password to her wi-fi system so I couldn’t sync up my computer.  And with my kids there  I couldn’t exactly take off and find a coffee show where I could work.  Ok I thought, at least I could sit down the follwing morning at my inlaws and I’d be able to sync up there.

Our 5:40 flight finally boarded at 7:50.  We sat on the runway for an hour and finally got in around midnight.  We got to my inlaws at 2am and we were so happy to crash and get out of our clothes!  I think I”m going to burn the skirt and the shirt I wore for those 2 days!

So, I get my computer out this morning, all set to get to work, and no dice.  They don’t know the password to their wi-fi either!!!!!  And, they are out in the boondocks so there was no possibility of heading to a coffeeshop.

But, the good news is that I’m on a bus heading to Boston’s Logan airport (again, at the time it had seemed like a good idea to get my 2 college roommates to meet up with me in Boston) and it has wi-fi that’s actually accessible!!!!  As it’s just an hr I thought I would sync up and write a post to make sure everyone was aware that I’m not ignoring them.  And now I’m going to get off the computer before I get car sick!!!

Thanks in advance for your patience and please know that I am so sorry for the delay.  I should be able to work through my very full inbox by tomorrow at some point. 

If you have any travel plans this summer I hope for your sake you aren’t booked on any flights we are!  If you are, you might want to eat the change fee and get on another flight!

WOW!  It’s been a busy month sorry to have been so MIA!!

I wanted to update you on where we stand with the Ali Travel Stamp Set.  I got a call from Kah-Mei with Fontwerks late on Monday night.  She received the stamps that day from China and was supposed to overnight them to us.  Unfortunately the stamps just were not up to par.  Instead of being clear they had a frosted appearance and Kah-Mei said they were not saleable.  She immediately contacted the factory and told them they needed to be redone.  They are manufacturing a new batch today and those will ship to Kah-Mei tomorrow.    We should have them in our anxious hands on Tuesday.  Our plan is to have everyone’s orders packaged up and postage done so that all that will remain is to add the stamps and seal the packages.  By doing so, we hope to have everything set to ship on Wednesday. 

I am terribly sorry for the delay and I wish there was something I could do to speed up the process.  We’ve worked with Fontwerks several times on custom stamps and have never had a problem in the past.  I know that Kah-Mei is very upset over this situation and understands that we have a very large number of customers waiting on this product.  Please let us know if you have any questions about this situation.  You can reach us at mailbox@cocoadaisy.com

Ali and I leave tomorrow for CHA.  I’m excited to see all the new products, friends, and to just experience the hussle and bussle that is CHA.  I’ll definitely do a post from Chicago on my favorites!  And CHA is just one reason more why I wish the stamps weren’t delayed –  I hate to leave with something incomplete!   While I’m out of town, if there is anything you need addressed, please feel free to contact Krista at krista@cocoadaisy.com and she will be able to help you.

Hi Guys,

Since the Ali kit was so full of awesome travel goodies, I just had to make a mini album. I created this one using some tabbed chipboard pages that I had lying around. All the paper and embellishments are from the kit, and I added paint, marker, stamping and glitter.  I can’t seem to lay off the glitter lately. I even used the packaging from the epoxy stickers and included a pocket to fill with memorabilia. My friend and I are traveling to DC and Baltimore soon so I’m giving this one to her so she’ll have an album from the trip. I know a lot of you are going to be creating travel albums with this kit and I can’t wait to see them all. Make sure you post them in the gallery and don’t forget there’s a contest going on right now!

The blog isn’t letting me post all the images here so I put the rest of them here:

http://www.cocoadaisy.com/forum/gallery/menu.php?album_id=76

GOOD NEWS!  Tricia has been able to reorder the Ali Stamp Set that is an add-on for the July Kit! Not sure when they will ship - we will keep you posted!

FYI - Tricia is unable to post on the Cocoa Daisy blog at the moment, but she will be making updates as soon as she can. Thanks for your patience as she gets the new site up and running 100%.

-Christine