Cheri, Toni, and I were talking a couple months ago about our desire for some girl time and a road trip. So, I asked Heidi (one of the gazillion that I know) if she'd be willing to let us sleep on her floor and couch, which are located in a town that would require a little bit of traveling to get to. Well, she said yes, then it morphed into a group of Portland-ish girls driving up and one Boise-ish girl driving over to Seattle-ish, and spending the weekend with a bunch of girls that live up there. There were about fifteen people involved over the weekend and it the first time I'd met four of them, though we all know each other online.
Oh, it was
such a fun weekend!! We met up at the
Country Village Shops in Bothell and spent the afternoon there. Lots of cute shops and plenty of socializing taking place while we browsed and shopped. I bought my first random (meaning, it doesn't match anything I own and serves no practical purpose) W at a kids' clothing store there. It's amazingly gaudy and you'll be shocked I actually spent money on it. Truly. In fact, I'm shocked. But it's always going to remind me of a weekend with friends, so it's worth it.
Saturday night we hung out at Heidi's house and ate a truckload of food - some snacks that people had brought and a bunch of Mexican food that Heidi had prepared for us. Then we stayed up late talking, laughing, talking, laughing, talking, lau .... well, you get the idea. The locals all went home between 10 and 1 to sleep in their own beds, then the rest of us put on jammies and stayed up as late as 3:00.
We, along with some of the locals who came back over, had a leisurely morning on Sunday, staying in jammies til almost noon and eating a fantastic breakfast that Heidi had prepared. She is
truly the hostess with the mostess!! All we wanted was a place to sleep, but she really pampered us.
Although we were in the Seattle area, we skipped the city stuff and stuck with visiting smaller areas. So, after we all got dressed, we headed to downtown Edmonds for a little shopping (and a lot of browsing) in all the cute shops they have. I bought some over-priced gummy grapefruit so the group could all experience them and Melanie loved them enough to buy her own bag. I also got an ice cream spade (we like them more than scoops) and a clove-scented candle that's awesome. Eating was next on the agenda and we opted for seafood. Toni and I ended up going halves on the two meals we couldn't decide between. So, I ate half of an incredibly yummy Hawaiian cobb salad and half of a crispy coconut prawn bowl, plus the bread that comes with the meal. They almost had to roll me out the door. So stuffed!!
Then it was time to drive south, dropping people off along the way. A personal milestone occurred on the trip home when I pumped my own gas for the first time. That's right, folks, I'd never pumped gas. I've lived in Oregon most of my life and other people have pumped when I've been in other states. Crazy, huh? Faith did an excellent job of coaching me, though, so I wasn't totally winging it.
You'd think the story would end there, but it doesn't. I'll tell you the rest in a second, but first I'll show you some pictures.
The Friday night group - This is the group that met in Bothell ... minus one, plus three.
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We got to "meet" the son of one person in our group. Having your picture on a milk carton isn't always a bad thing.
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I won
a contest about a week ago and my prize was hand-delivered over the weekend. Cute little cosmetic bag, huh?
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My totally crazy W purchase ... I mean funky souvenir. Pink beads, orange fabric, sequins, little bells. Yeah, it's odd.
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The Sunday night group - This is who we spent the earlier part of the day with, minus two.
I'm
so thankful for the time away from the daily grind, laughing so much my cheeks hurt, talking about all sorts of things, and just relaxing!
Ok, I said the story didn't end there. Here's the scoop. We had stopped at a Burger King in Kelso to drop someone off. I started to get back in the van, but the other three passengers had to use the bathroom. Ok, fine. So, I wait inside by the door while they do their thing. I'm thumbing through a magazine and hear someone behind me ask if there's a hotel nearby. Then she asks if it's within walking distance. Odd question, considering it's dark and drizzly outside, so I glance back to see who it was. This girl (well, I thought she was younger than she turned out to be) is in tears and trying to coordinate hotel arrangements with someone on the phone. I hear her say the young guy who was giving her hotel info had offered to give her a ride down the street to the hotel. I'm sure he's a great BK employee and he acted like a total gentleman, but it just made more sense for a group of moms to take her than a guy on his own. Right?
Anyway, my friends are coming out of the bathroom by this point, so I slyly ask them what they think about offering her a ride. They all agree and we find out she needs to be in Portland by the next morning to catch a flight. So, we brought her along with us, took her to a hotel she had reserved, found out the reservation didn't go through because the company's server was down, wait for that online reservation to get canceled, then took her to another hotel, waited for her to get her room key, gave her a hug, then left ... and still got home at a reasonable hour.
I looked her up on Facebook when I got home to let her know we wanted to make sure she got back home safely. She wrote back and ended up becoming my FB friend. So fun! I've never given a ride to a stranger before and may never do it again, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. Guess it was a good (or God, as it seems in hindsight) thing my friends all needed to go to the bathroom (or we'd have left without going inside) and that I didn't (or I'd have been in the bathroom & never been aware of the situation).
And that concludes the story ... well, some of the highlights, anyway ... of my weekend.
