It's Monday and for me the best part of any trip is going home, but what a great trip. Derek and his ED team were amazing, and I'm sure exhausted by now. I have some new lifelong soapin' sisters and one of the group has started a FB page - My husband has been driving me nuts about FB so I guess I will just have to add something else to my to do list.... Ah well. Derek added one more "shopping surprise" for us on Sunday. They have re-done all of their packaging to re-vamp their GMP. But he explained that he had some items that he was clearing out with the old packaging. Dang, I had been so good - I had stuck to my list and was happy until..... He offered us his organic shea butter - 5lbs $10.00. Boxes and boxes of 2oz EOs 3 for $10.00. Now I've never purchased EO from them but if I can try their rose geranium, helichrysum and bay for $1.75 an ounce, credit card burn on. I behaved - only spent an additional $80.00. I can't say enough about the group dynamic though; (kinda reminded me of the group here). There were people there who made their first soap at the retreat to soapers with 20+ years of experience. The energy was unbelievable - people were helping each other; there was an unplanned soap swap when we cut our first loaves - each group had a mystery oil added to their base recipe and people were swapping and trading like mad. Our shea loaf was crazy soft - definitely needed a visit to the freezer, but no one cared. I was able to get permission from Kevin to share some of his info, and I begged him to do an audio book. He is the professor you wished you had for all of your coursework- Funny, patient, makes sure everyone is "with him" in his lectures. I really regret not paying more attention in my chemistry classes. Anyway, I'll post the rest of my pics below and if you need a break for Florida there are 2 more sessions with different material planned for each in Jan and March. It's killing me that I can't go back; I'll be in Disney celebrating my DH's 50th B-Day that week in Jan and the Guild conference in Indy is in April, so a little overkill. But I am planning on next November!