Girlfriend Weekend-Thanks Bitches!

Each year the women in our mommy play group get together at my parent's cabin at Bear Lake. My sister was the brainchild of this event and I am so glad she thought of it. This year I took my turn at planning the weekend so I decided to invite some other Mommy's In Need of a Break. I only convinced one of the new invitees, Kari, to attend, and I'm so glad she did. She was a great addition to our group. This year our group was the largest yet, 12, which I was excited and worried about at the same time. No worries, it went swimmingly.
I was glad to ride up with Piper. She has been gone for 12 days and we hadn't had time to catch up since she'd been home. I did most the talking though because she has a nasty cold and not much of a voice. It was great to get all my Sara Palin bitching out!!
We stayed up LATE the first night laughing and telling stories. I won't repeat any of the hilarious stories and conversations, but OMG. I hang out with the funniest people!
The next day many of us slept in to catch up on much needed sleep. One of the things I love most about this weekend is the flexibility. Everyone is totally content to do their own thing and let everyone else do theirs. The weather decided we weren't going to have any beach time this year. It rained and rained and rained. Which was actually very peaceful and made the landscape really beautiful. Some brave souls headed out for a walk despite the downpour while the rest of us had a lazy morning of lounging and eating Sara and Mandy's delish breakfast of homemade zucchini bread and fresh fruit. Sooo good. Then our resident Pilates instructor Piper led us in an ab destroying, butt burning session. My abs are still groaning, I need to go to some of her classes on a regular basis. Lunch was a delish duo of salads by Piper (who, my son Myles will gratuitously tell random people, is a FANTASTIC chef). The afternoon consisted of napping, reading, scrapbooking, snacking, and, of course, more wonderful conversation. Piper, Sara, Kelli and I played a round of Balderdash. I'm good at writing false definitions, and I won, but I must say I suck royally at the strategic aspect of the game. I lost track of the times Piper rolled her eyes at me! LOL. It was really fun. And I don't usually love games.
Kari gave me the most fabulous session of acupressure. I learned that the reason I am always so stiff and knotted on the right side is that is is my masculine side, which is your doing, logical, practical side. Apparently, I'm not as comfortable, or confident with that aspect of myself, so I strain and end up holding on to the tension in my neck and back on the right side. When she told me that I knew she was absolutely correct and impressed with her intuition.
For dinner we had Keri's and Patrice's fantastic dinner of enchiladas and spanish rice. Oh how I love good food. Thank goodness there was no shortage of that! We stayed up to talk some more and watched the Sex in the City movie. I never got into the series, so I'm sure I missed a lot of the details and connections, but I still enjoyed it. Made me realize that I don't want to be Miranda. I need to pay more attention to my man. I stayed up to read a bit because I am totally and embarassingly addicted to the Twilight books. One word, Edward. 'Nuff said.
Sunday was a spectacular day, overcast and breezy with crisp, sweet air. The lake was deep blue and sparkled. If I knew I had one month to live, I'd just head right up to Bear Lake. It is far and away my favorite place on earth. More home to me than my parent's house. My happy place.
Piper headed out early for a social obligation. The rest of us ate my breakfast, that Sara so generously prepared for me because I couldn't get my lazy ass out of bed. Cinnamon Apple Oven Pancake. It was good. Then more of the same wonderful easy going lounging around. Lunch was Angie's Sweet potato Sausage Leek casserole. My mom started making this for Thanksgiving instead of the usual candied sweet potatoes (which none of us liked ) when I was teenage. Even my husband, who doesn't love sweet potatoes, agrees it is fabulous. Poor Jenny made a huge pot of soup, got distracted and had to throw it out because it scorched. Poor us too. I love her soup.
Ang decided to leave early and once she started packing up, everyone else did too. I wasn't at all ready to come home, but we cleaned up and took off about 3. I really enjoyed the ride home with Jaymison, Jenny and Kari. When I got home the fam damily wasn't here, and I decided to take advantage of the peace for as long as it lasted.
Then, in door came my two balls of energy. I'm so glad they were as happy to see me as I was them. R did a fantastic job this weekend. House clean, meals made, snowbird season pass pictures taken, sleep schedule maintained, playdates with friends, and happy kids on top of all that. Maybe he should be the stay at home parent. He really did do a great job. I'm a lucky woman.
Such a great weekend. I look forward to it all year and I can't believe it flew by so fast. I wish we could go up for a week! I don't know what I am going to do when Z starts 1st grade and I don't have a kid to take to play group. Seriously, I don't know what I will do without my weekly social hour. I have such great friends!!