Let me preface the following by saying it is only a 6 1/2 hr car ride from Shreveport to Austin.  Well, by plane, you would think it would be quicker, right?  wrong.  lol.  After all of the weather delays, it took almost 8 hours for me to actually get to Austin.  but it was SO worth it!

The first night there we had a welcoming dinner, with a special guest appearance by Diva Poulos and Anthony Cole – very cool.  AND we got our swag bags!  I’m talking FULL of stuff!  We got a shirt, a travel coffee mug, a water bottle, several full sized Redken products, several full sized Sebastian products, some BioElements stuff, a bracelet, oh my word there was so much stuff!  not to mention an awesome bag!  The dinner wasn’t very tasty lol, so after our show several of us made friends and went on down to the restaurant in the hotel and got some grub.  That’s where I met Tyra and made my new BFF for the trip

The second day was the actual first day of the show.  So Sunday Tyra and I met downstairs and hit the floor.  There was so much to take in!  Sales booths from every vendor imaginable, constant demonstrations going on every where you looked, and classes galore!  We decided to make the most of our time by only window shopping the first day and catching as many demos as we could.  we accidentally ran into John Paul DiGiora (a/k/a Paul Mitchell) and got our picture taken with him (EEEK!  what an amazing thing to put in my portfolio )

Then we caught a class by Nick Arrojo who is just amazing.  He’s one of my top 5 hair mentors, even if he doesn’t know it…lol.  just to watch him sculpture the hair with those razors is breathtaking…and i got it all on video!  I’m trying to figure out how to transfer all of my videos to youtube from my iphone 4.0.  good thing i double taped them, lol.  i know i looked stupid holding up my iphone and my video camera, but i really don’t care!  oh, and we went by one booth called “It’s a 10″ and received ANOTHER bag with TEN full size “It’s a 10″ products!  by now i’m starting to try and figure out exactly how i’m going to get all this home since i just brought a small carryon bag and my laptop satchel.

that night, we had a “formal” dinner – unfortunately, i never received my packet informing me that there would be a formal dinner, so i totally faked it with my black slacks and a black top and sparkly jewelry.  Our guest that evening was Fransico Villa from Redken.  He was hilarious and very very very inspiring as well.   i got my picture with him and tons of video.  He did a complete transformation on this one model in 10 minutes!!  it was awesome!

So after dinner that night, i took the most expensive cab ride of my life to go visit my friend who happens to live in Austin but was actually in the hospital while i was there.  I couldn’t NOT go – we’ve been friends since 3d grade!  23 years people!!  it was great catching up with him and worth every penny!!

once i got back to the hotel, around 3 am, i tried to figure out how to pack all of my stuff.  i figured if i could get the products in my suitcase, i could roll my clothes up and put them in the bag regency gave us, then just check my suitcase and carry the regency bag and my laptop.  well, i had so much FREE product, that it wouldn’t fit in my bag!!  what’s a girl to do?

I made it downstairs the next morning at 830 to meet Tyra so we could hit the show one more time before we had to check out at noon.  we wanted to check out the discount corner and see what we could find and i needed to find a bag that i could fit all my products in!!!  we didn’t get much from the discount corner b/c it was a lot of stuff i really wasn’t interested in.  but there were some amazing deals had i been actually working in a salon instead of just a student.

We made our way up to the TiGi booth where i bought an awesome patent leather bag that was big enough to stick everything in.  and, guess what, when i bought the bag, i got a ton of free product…lol.  i swear – i won’t have to buy product for at least a year!  i’m getting the pics of everything together as we speak…lol.

i made it back to the hotel with just enough time to throw ALL of the products in my new bag, all my clothes in my suitcase, and check out by 12.  lol… barely!  i caught my shuttle at 12:25 and headed home.  it’s been a week and i’m still exhausted!

OH!  AND i came home on Monday night, and by Thursday, the last day of September, i had made STAR again.  so there!  three times in 6 months ain’t a bad track record!  whooo hoooo!!!

AND, there may even be some extra goodies thrown in

Giveaway!!

So, wanna get you hands on this?  I know you do!   You can get an entry for each of the following:

1) Subscribe  it’s right over there to the right – just leave me a note telling me you have subscribed or that you are a subscriber already!

2)  Follow me on Twitter ( @Super_Bre) and leave me a comment here letting me know

3) Repost this giveaway on Twitter  and link back to this post!

Drawing will be held Wednesday, August 18th!  You can enter any of the ways listed above and up to 3 times total each day  Winner will be chosen at random using a third-party source and notified via e-mail.

Good luck!