Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

I just got back this afternoon from a fabulous girls weekend away! My bff, Carolyn, and I went to visit my sister Mary for a girls-only weekend that included shopping, scrapbooking, wonderful food, chocolate, a great movie, and a finale that you wouldn't believe!!!

We arrived in Michigan on Friday evening and our first stop was our favorite place to shop for scrapbooking supplies and to get inspired for an all-day crop we were going to the next day. (Yes, we do shop at other scrapbook stores - we can't possibly carry it all at our own store!) We found a couple of fun new things and then it was off to Mary's house for the night.

The next day, we started out early and went to our cropping location.

It was a beautiful place and we settled in for 12 wonderful hours of scrapbooking. It didn't take too long to get started on creating some layouts. I had brought some of the papers and embellishments from the new MME collection, Breaking Free. I have been drooling over this line since it arrived in our store just a couple of weeks ago and I have to say - it is the best!!! I will post the finished layouts in the next day or so.

This is one of my pages in progress. I realized as the day went on, what a truly messy scrapbooker I am! Carolyn's space was quite tidy all day, but mine kept going from bad to worse! Mary scrapbooked more like me as you can see in this photo.

We enjoyed some amazing food from a great little Italian restaurant that was right next door to our cropping location. For lunch we indulged in the best original Italian folded pita that I have ever had.

Then for dinner we had an old world Italian Wood/Brick Oven pizza and Antipasto Salad. Oh my - was it ever good! The only thing missing was a bottle of red wine, but if we had that along with our meal, we would have never been able to finish our scrapbooking!

After 12 wonderful hours of talking, laughing, chocolate, and playing with paper, ink, Glimmer Mist, chipboard, gems, ribbon, buttons, brads, photos, and countless other scrapbooking goodies, I completed close to 4-1/2 layouts.

It may not sound like much, but each one was a special creation that I totally enjoyed making and will treasure almost as much as the memory itself! I guess that is why I scrapbook and every once in a while I need to get away from the demands of our store and get back to the reason I started in this amazing hobby in the first place.

Saturday night we went back to Mary's with some home-made Cannolis and Tiramisu from our Italian restaurant and watched 'The Diary of a Mad Black Woman' starring Tyler Perry. It is a true chick-flick that makes you laugh and cry and want to watch again and again. If you haven't seen it, you really should.

On Sunday before we left for home, we went to a beautiful outdoor mall, Partridge Creek, to do something that Mary and I have talked about doing for some time. We invited Carolyn to join us in our little adventure and sure enough, she did so without hesitation!

We all got an extra piercing in our left ear! Yikes! The three of us now have a beautiful little diamond stud in our ear and they are so pretty! I have always liked the look of an extra earring and I really wanted to do it! My hubby thinks it is a mid-life crisis thing, but as I explained to him - girls just wanna have fun!!!

It was a truly wonderful weekend and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to get away with Carolyn and Mary to enjoy some girl time. As Carolyn asked on our way home, "So when are we booking our next weekend away?" I hope it is in the near future!