Queen of Bliss, Joeann Fossland

This year's REEA (Real Estate Educators) Conference was in Portland. It gave us the timing and destination for our vacation this year. Over 130 Educators, School administrators and Association staff gathered to network, learn and share. If you are an instructor and not a member of REEA, please visit the website and join! You'll be glad you did.

It was fun to see friends like Amy Chorew, Darryl Davis, Rossi, Kathy Howe and Doug DeVitre! And meet some new friends! The Twitter hashtag #REEAPORT will give you some more insights into the experience.

 Dirk Zeller, a hometown boy and real estate trainer, delivered the keynote and entertained us with a delightful story about his 7 year old's lemonade stand. That child is following the great example of a salesperson Dirk has modeled.

The theme of the conference was GREEN and the handouts were on a nice little zip drive instead of a notebook! I love it!!! Portland was a good example of a community doing a lot of very environmentally friendly things. The hotel room even had separate receptacles for cans and glasses and newspapers.

Wow! For two nights in a row, we ate the Best Oysters in the World! The first night we went to Jakes Famous Crawfish and the second night to the oldest family restaurant in Portland, Dan and Louis and Oyster Bar Restaurant

The parallel universe trippers, Lily and Bub, went to the great zoo and saw a new baby elephant. Portland is a beautiful town to walk around in. There were lots of parks and the riverfront through downtown was a wonderful walking path from where we stayed about a mile north of the REEA Headquarters hotel.

 Friday was a drive from Hines, Oregon to Mt. Hood. No presentation this day and we'll be staying at the Timberline Lodge for 2 nights. It will be nice to not have to pack up and get back in the car immediately. This drive reminded me a bit of the train trip from Sydney to Perth, where the road was straight and the scenery was unchanging for miles and miles. That railtrip in Australia has the longest stretch of straight tracks in the world. The road from Hines to Bend is a long monotonous stretch.

The scenery started to change on the drive from Bend to Mt. Hood. We travel through beautiful pine forests as the altitude gets higher and higher. When we arrive at the Timberline Lodge at 5850 ft., it's a blustery day and the lodge is surrounded by snow. The Lodge is beautifully constructed. Built in 1937 by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) during the depression, it is a comfy place to snuggle in and enjoy their signature Hot Chocolate!

We enjoy a wonderful dinner complete with sorbet and a surprise bite of filet for an appeitizer! They say in the service industry, creating surprisese is one of the keys to WOW service! Are you creating surprises for your clients?

There is skiing this time of year on the slopes of Mt. Hood. A little over an hour from Portland, family and groups come for the day. On Saturday, there was a large group of handicapped skiers enjoying the slopes in special ski contraptions. Each of the mornings started out sunny, with clouds below us and as the days wore on, the clouds increased, but the weather is pretty balmy. We bought some gloves and had a snowball fight to Lly's delight!

Lily was thrilled the Pool and Spa, even though they were outside, w!ere warm and fun! I was happy to have a little downtime and just relax....

Life is good!

Oh.... what a beautiful morning! The sun is just peaking over the ridge at the Miracle Hot Springs between Buhl and Hagerman, Idaho. We slept in a canvas dome last night.I woke this morning to the sound of Alligators roaring! What an adventure!

We started the day soaking in the hot springs again. Lily swung from the trapeze and did flips off it while Bub did arm exercises to loosen his healing shoulder. I booked a massage this morning and it was blissful! After an hour in the hot water and an hour having trigger points release all my tension, I felt a bit like a melted pool of water. Bliss is a good word to describe it!

But, alas...time to get back on the road to Boise for today's e-PRO Workshop at the Keller Williams office.

My friend, Past WCR National President, Gail Harnett, helped get me invited and came to the workshop. Gail had signed up several years ago and wanted to know the process to now get certified. This is a question I am asked occasionally and the answer is there is a special discounted rated that varies depending on how long ago you took the course. If this applies to you, contact epro@internetcrusade for details about how you can jump back in! Everyone who enrolls in June (or restarts) will get the new Social Media module included! Or... if you've never signed up and you are ready:
Sign up for the e-PRO in June and get $25 off as well as the Social Networking module.

The parallel universe trippers, GrandBub and Lily went off to the Boise Zoo. Lily had wanted to see some Bald Eagles on this trip and got her wish at the zoo. Perhaps, now that she knows what they look like, she can spot one in the wild. Bub says the zoo was not as nice as 2 years ago, that it looked like the funding or current administration has cut back the budget. That's too bad.

Back in the car for a not so traveled road to Hines, Oregon. We decided to take a more southern route through Oregon and up the Cascades to make our way to Portand. The country was starkly beautiful as we drove west on Route 20 from the Idaho border. Vast open spaces, punctuated from time to time with cattle ranches. There are some amazing hills striated with lines of green Bub said looked like stretch marks. We drove past very volcanic looking black rock bluffs before dropping down into Burns and then Hines.
Lily was disappointed the pool was under construction at The Comfort Inn but I was tired enough to be ready for bed after reading the next awful chapter of Lemony Sickett's Bad Beginning. Count Olaf has hung baby Sunny in a cage 30 feet in the air blackmailing Violet into marrying him to get the orphan's fortune. It is a very disagreeable book. Lily is enjoying it! Oh, my....