Sunday, August 2, 2009

Wiggles of the West 2009

What a super delicious weekend at Wiggles of the West!!!

We started out our day running behind schedule due to our scooter “Stella” not wanting to get on the back of our RV. I had the RV all loaded Tuesday night and all we had to do is put Stella on the back in the morning. When we went to put the bike hitch on the RV we couldn’t find the bolt to hold it in place. My ingenious husband put an over size drill bit and bungee corded the hitch in place. Needless to say I was very nervous about what he had done and envisioned Stella coming off the back of the RV going down the freeway; yikes!

After an hour and half messing with Stella we were on our way. First stop the QT to top off the gas than on to pick up Kelley. Made it to Kelley’s house with Stella still on the back than it was off to Wal-Mart to get a bolt for the hitch; yeah!!!!!

Finally we are on the road to Las Vegas to Wiggles of the West for 4 days of vending, teaching a workshop and watching the competitions. Well that’s what we thought… We just turned off the I17 onto Carefree highway and blew the front right tire!!! We blew a back tire when we were on the way to Sedona 2 years ago in the middle of no where when I went to teach a dance workshop.

We called our insurance company; yeah Progressive, and they sent a tow truck to change the tire and put a spare on for us and we were off to 7th St. and Cave Creek road to Discount Tire to put 2 front tires on the RV. Okay now we have 6 new tires on the “Beast” my loving name of our RV, and we are finally off to Las Vegas; 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday!

The rest of the trip was awesome, no more vehicle troubles!!! Kelley thought I was totally crazy playing word games like the grocery store game and name game on the way up but I tell you it certainly passes the time away on a very boring drive. Since we have a large vehicle we can’t go over the Hoover Dam and have to take a detour through Laughlin. Through Laughlin there was a wreck a semi truck had turned over on its side cab and all. We couldn’t tell if any one got hurt it only seemed to be the semi that was involved.

We finally made it into Sam’s Town Las Vegas at around 7:00 p.m., hooked up the RV at Sam’s Town RV Park and went to check out were we were going to be vending on Thursday. We checked the place out, got Kelley registered at the hotel were she was going to be sharing a room with Gail and Debbie, hit Panda Express and back to the RV for dinner. What a long day!

Thursday morning came really early. I called Gail to arrange time to get everyone together to go set up our booth. They had a late start on Wednesday and got in after midnight. We could start setting up at 7:00 a.m. but I chose to get everyone together at 8:30 a.m. Gail drove her truck to the RV Park with Kelley in tow and we loaded up 15 tubes of goodies that we will be selling. Thank goodness we have a basement in our RV to store Shimmy Bliss :-) The hubby was terrific through the entire trip loading, unloading, loading, unloading and loading & unloading the RV with all our stuff!


Debbie, Gail and Kelley


We get to garage 2 3rd floor to unload only to find that there is VIP parking close to the elevators so we put the racks together and large cart we have and loaded everything on wheels and made it one trip! We found the Ponderosa conference rooms and we got the best booth in the entire room. We were in a corner next to a mirror and a small closet area behind us was perfect for a dressing room to try on the costumes we brought and best of all it had an electrical plug for my laptop!


yeah the booth is done!


We started setting up the booth and it took us several hours before we had it the way we wanted. Gail brought one of her dress forms, “Squishy” which we dressed every day. We had a theme for the 4 days we were vending and Squishy was one of the girls modeling the theme for the day.


Squishy


Thursday was filled with workshops through out the day from 8:30 a.m. ending at 6:00 p.m. Starting at 7:00 p.m. was the Meet and Greet with buffet and show. I performed at the Meet and Greet and was open for vending during the night. I performed with my fan veils which will be the workshop I will be teaching at next years Wiggles of the West. It was a fun evening ending at 9:30 p.m.

Kelley modeling a shell belt

I ran back to the RV to change and John, my hubby and I met Gail, Kelley and Debbie at the movie theater at Sam’s Town for the 10:00 p.m. showing of Star Trek. Great film and will need to watch it again to catch all the things I missed from the first viewing J It was midnight when we got out of the movies it was time it get some sleep.

Friday morning I met Gail at the booth at 8:00 a.m. to open up shop and it was off to teach my Tribal Fusion Indian Styling workshop at 8:30 a.m. I forgot to take my camera to class and I didn’t get a photo of everyone :-( It was a great workshop and the students did great learning all the mudras (hand positions) and dance steps. I barely got through everything in 2 hours and it was back to the booth to relieve Gail so she could take the Aradia’s drum solo workshop at 10:45 a.m. Her workshop was held in the large room where everything was happening so we got to watch :-)

view of Wiggles from our booth

At 1:00 p.m. they closed the large room to give the vendors a break for lunch which was a buffet and show at Sam’s Town Live. What a fantastic room with a large stage, 2 large screens on both sides of the stage, great sound system, lights and more. The show was fantastic and it was good to chill for an hour. Thanks to the lovely ladies of Anaya Tribal giving me their Friday buffet ticket, this way I could have lunch with my hubby. I returned the favor and gave them my Saturday ticket so they could enjoy the food and show which I heard was just as great.


Tiffany and Cari of Anaya Tribal

The doors opened at 2:30 p.m. for the competition to start at 3:00 p.m. Friday started with the Headliner group than Mini Ensemble ending with Alternative Wiggles. Every contestant did great and Wiggles Alternative brought the house down what a fun category! The winners were announced and prizes were given and we all got out of there at midnight; what a day!


Kelley, me and Kyla

We started Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. and Gail and Debbie took an 8:30 a.m. workshop with Inara and Kelley helped out in the booth until we broke again for lunch from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. We all went to Friday’s at Sam’s Town and inhaled lunch so we could get back to the booth to get ready for the 2:30 p.m. opening of the doors. Saturday competitions were Hobbyist, Ensemble (troupes) and Entertainer Preliminaries. The ensembles were fun to watch and the group that one, Troupe Amara of the Midnight Mirage School of Dance was huge and it was amazing how they all fit on stage! There were 28 Entertainer of the year competitors performing that night and they cut that down to 13 finalists for the next day. Winners were announced and prizes were given to the Hobbyists and Ensemble categories and it was midnight again before we closed up shop and called it a day. Congratulations to Candice for winning the Hobbyist category!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday morning 9:00 a.m. we all met at Friday’s at Sam’s Town and I took my crew out for breakfast. A super huge thanks to Gail, Kelley, Debbie and John for helping at Wiggles I couldn’t have done it without you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The doors opened at 11:00 a.m. for the start of the competitions for the day; Rising Star, Tribal Fusion Ensemble and Entertainer Finals. My favorite was the Tribal Fusion Ensemble category, yeah Tribal!!!! The winners were Orchid Belly Dance from CA. They were great and they were customers of mine for years so it was super exciting to meet them in person! Tribal Moon Rising from CA was terrific being my best customers at Wiggles; ladies thanks so much for shopping with us! Maha Dansori was fun and they shopped with us on Sunday, they took 3rd place. Congrats to all the winners of the Tribal Fusion Ensemble category.


lovely ladies of Tribal Moon Rising

The day ended around 7:00 p.m., an early night. We packed up the booth got it all back to the RV, loaded it up and we all met Kyla and Nisha at the buffet in Sam’s Town for dinner. What a riot that meal was, we closed the place at 9:30!

Kyla thanks for keeping us so entertained throughout the weekend you were a blast. Every morning we would have the panty reveal and girl you have some great undies! I still can’t believe my husband got in on the act showing his skull boxers; yikes! :0) Through out the entire weekend you lifted our spirits when we were all so tired we didn’t know if we were coming or going; thanks!


Kyla

To Janie and Chris, the Two Old Bags, Awesome Party!!!!!!!!!!! Wiggles of the West keeps getting better and better and I love that you move it to Vegas!!! I was there at the first Wiggles in Sparks, NV and wow has this event grown! We will be back next year and can’t wait!

Chris and Janie (Two Old Bags)

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