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I’m guessing there aren’t too many people who don’t like going on holidays, I LOVE holidays and just recently I went on holidays with my family and it was AWESOME!

We found an absolute bar.gain and just HAD to take it, we HAD to!

Our holiday was a glorious, gorgeous, relaxing 12 night cruise on the fabulous Pacific Dawn to Fiji and surrounding islands. It.Was.Brilliant

Honestly, if you need a holiday, and by that a holiday where you do as much or as little as you want without any of the boring stuff ie making your bed, cleaning the bathroom, cooking dinner then a CRUISE is the way to go. Value for money, oh yes!

We’re (well I’m) already looking for my next bar.gain cruise – and there are many! I thought I had found the bar.gain of the century last week when I came across a 104night cruise for $8,000 in a balcony room – I freaked out, called my mum, called my sister and BOOKED it! Sadly, the travel agent contacted me a few days later and apologised but the price was WRONG it should have been $33,000 bugger! It was exciting to dream for awhile!

If you’re worried about getting sea sick, don’t! My mum suffers from seasickness, she got sick when we went out on a BBQ boat!! Mum didn’t get sick AT ALL. We all (well, the sensible ones) took Avomine each night (and in the morning if they had predicted larger swells) and were fine, no sickness at all. We didn’t miss one meal!

Talking of meals, you will not starve! Wonderful food, wonderful service and very full tummies at the end of each meal. Even when we thought ‘I’m not that hungry’ we still always ended up coming back with a plate full of food (and didn’t waste it!).

So now it’s back to work and the everyday stuff, sitting and dreaming of my next cruise.

Some of the Travel sites I now regularly check are:

<a href="http://www.ozcruising.com.au">www.ozcruising.com.au</a> (we booked through them, great service and prices plus we all got a free lanyard – you attached your ‘cruise card’ to this!)

<a href="http://www.justcruises.com.au">www.justcruises.com.au</a>

<a href="http://www.pocruises.com.au">www.pocruises.com.au</a> plus their facebook page <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pocruises">www.facebook.com/pocruises</a>

<a href="http://www.eseacruising.com.au">www.eseacruising.com.au</a>

and even the cruise cam site! <a href="http://www.kroooz-cams.com/poaus-fleet.php">www.kroooz-cams.com/poaus-fleet.php</a> – this lets you see where each of the ships are and not just the Aussie ships. Helps keep the motivation to work extra hard and be able to book the next cruise.

We all loved being able to get away from the ‘everyday’ of life and have no committments, do as you want, when you want, where you want. It was great to not have to think of work at all (I had an amazing lady looking after everything – THANK YOU Danni!) and to really RELAX – sigh.

Even if you love your job or business it does help to just get away, even if it’s only for a few days. Just to be, to breathe, to smile, to laugh, to relax. It does you (and the people around you) the world of good.

Here are a few images of the ship when spent 12 days on:
<img src="http://www.pocruises.com.au/Galleries/Ships/PacificDawn/_w/pdawn-1_jpg.jpg" alt="" />
The P&O Pacific Dawn
<img src="http://www.pocruises.com.au/Galleries/Ships/PacificDawn/_w/pdawn-2_jpg.jpg" alt="" />
The Dining Room – we had dinner here every night
<img src="http://www.pocruises.com.au/Galleries/Ships/PacificDawn/_w/pdawn-6_jpg.jpg" alt="" />
The Dome – great place to sit and watch the world go by (with a wine or 2!)
<img src="http://www.pocruises.com.au/Galleries/Ships/PacificDawn/_w/pdawn-3_jpg.jpg" alt="" />
One of the many rooms (we didn’t have a balcony plus we had 4 people in each of our rooms so there were a few more beds!)
<img src="http://pacificdawn.pocruises.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Juassic-Park.jpg" alt="" />
One of our stops – Pentecost

These images are from the P&O website as I don’t have my photos yet – my sister was the unoffical offical photographer so I have to wait for her to send them down. She took A LOT of photos and is trying to narrow it down to 200 so they fit nicely in the photo album!

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To get your Easter orders in. As we mentioned we’re heading away for 2 weeks over the NSW school holidays (yay for us) which means the last day we will be able to pack any Easter gifts is Friday (although they need to be in by 6am as we head off not long after!).

We’d love to sell ALL of our Easter stock because if we don’t then I’m going to have to eat it, sigh (the trials of my business!!).

We’ve got milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate easter eggs – something for everyones taste buds!

There’s Red Tulip (my personal favourite), Cadbury and Pink Lady – ALL delicious. With our yummy Cadbury Easter eggs we have solid milk chocolate, turkish delight, peppermint, cadbury and even Crunchie and Cream Egg – go on you know you want to!

Don’t leave it any longer or you will miss out – order NOW, like this VERY minute! We can still send them closer to Easter for you we just won’t be able to put any more gifts together AFTER Friday 8 April (we’ll be cruising the high seas, me hearties!)

While I’m (Jacqui) away the lovely Dannielle will be holding down the fort and will be able to help you with all of your orders and enquiries, she’s an absolute gem! Simply use our online contact form and she’ll be ready and waiting to answer your questions! Don’t forget that we have a very helpful FAQ page and our Delivery Info page has all the details on how long your orders will take!

What are your plans for the school holidays?

Smile, have fun and be safe,

Jacqui

ps: Did I mention we have a fabulous box filled with a KILO of gorgeous easter eggs, no, well we DO! It’s our Easter Feaster - Cadbury and Pink Lady – milk, white & dark chocolate, soft centre eggs with peppermint cream, caramel, cream egg, strawberry and even turkish delight and crunchie!

yay, the school holidays are only three weeks away which means our FABULOUS FAMILY holiday is also only 3 weeks away, yippee!

We decided that this year we wanted to have a holiday all together BUT where the women didn’t have to still cook and clean. While deciding on what to do and where to go P&O had a SUPER SALE on their cruises! We were hooked. The girls had been on a cruise last September and LOVED it but we had such great weather we were all a bit hesitant about going on another cruise and pushing our luck!

We’re pushing our luck! The deal we got was TOO GOOD to refuse so 8 of us are off on a cruise around the pacific including FIJI, so very exciting.

The ONLY problem is, Rainbow Designs will have to have an early Easter as the NSW school holidays start 2 weeks before Easter – generally one of our busiest times!! Never fear though, we’ve still got PLENTY of YUMMY Easter gifts on our website including Red Tulip, Cadbury and Pink Lady chocolate eggs. Our FINAL DAY for placing EASTER orders with us will be Friday 8 April BUT we will be able to hold sending them until closer to Easter if required. I have been able to find a LOVELY person to send off our gifts for us UNFORTUNATELY we will not be able to MAKE UP any more Easter Gifts after this time. So what this means is, if you want to order some of our YUMMY Easter Gifts you will need to order them within the NEXT 3 weeks. ALL Easter orders placed AFTER this time will NOT be sent until AFTER Easter – that’d be a nice surprise though!!

Our gorgeous GIFT HAMPERS will still be available during this time as we have some FABULOUS people who will be working HARD in the leadup to EASTER to get these hampers out, yay!

oooh, I almost FORGOT, we’ve got some NEW gifts in store!! Prices start from $20 including delivery (as always!).

I’m embarking on a journey, now this journey doesn’t involve leaving my house or leaving my desk really, it’s a journey through my business. Where it is now, where it came from and where it is headed. Exciting, scary and a little bit daunting too.

Over the past 6-12months I’ve been in a bit of a muddle, I guess you could say, which has lead to my business becoming a bit muddled and confused really.

I started adding new gifts and new products that, in all honesty, probably do not reflect what Rainbow Designs is about and I was asked by my business coach ‘do you think it’s a bit confusing for you customers?’. Having thought about it, a lot, I think she maybe right. If I’m uncertain about where Rainbow Designs is heading my customers certainly must be.

What started out as an online gift shop selling affordable, sweet tooth based gifts has evolved into an online business selling a bit of this and a bit of that. Not all of it making sense or fitting in with my business idea.

I’ve got a long road ahead and I’m sure to take some wrong turns, go down a few dead ends and hit many potholes (a bit like driving around Port Macquarie actually!) but I am excited about what lays ahead and am really looking forward to the next step in my Rainbow Designs journey.

Here’s to the future and a newly sealed road.