My awesome Retreat

Back in April I was able to fly out with Andi and attend my awesome annual girlfriends retreat. This year it was held in Utah and we got to stay in Shanda's parents retreat home in Midway, Utah, close to Park City . The home was gorgeous and set up to have large groups. On Thursday the first day I flew into Utah in the early afternoon and rented a car and drove up to Brigham City, Utah to see my maternal grandmother, Colleen Ivey. I haven't seen her since my grandpa passed away a few years back. She is doing well and my aunt who lives with her is also holding up. My grandma just recently had knee repalcement surgery and is still trying to recover from that. We had a very nice visit and it was great to get a little down time to rest before the all nighters started. I left grandma's house after dinner and head back to the airport to meet the rest of the group heading in. I met up with Kacee, who lives in Las Vegas now, and Crystal and Shanda who are from Arizona. Luci, Melanie, and Jami were already in Utah, and Angie from Texas and Rebecca from Arizona also joined us up and the cabin after they were done visiting family that day. These ladies are such an amazing group of women.... We stayed up till 5 in the morning my time talking about every subject imaginable. It was great. I tried to catch a little nap before Andi was up for the day and after a short rest it was off to the Park City outlets for a full day of shopping. Between the 11 of us (Kathy from CA and Jen from UT joined us Friday morning) we can do some serious damage at the stores. We headed back to the cabin and ate a wonderful dinner and stayed up talking till 3 in the morning my time. Not bad if I do say so myself. Saturday we packed up and headed back into the Salt Lake Valley and hit some stores in Draper, Down East (where I did the most damage) Rod Works and a few others. We stopped for dinner at Los Hermanos, a wonderful mexican resturant in Lehi, UT and celebrated Shanda's birthday as well. Shannon from UT was even able to join us for dinner because other constraints keep her from coming to the retreat. We caught a tour of Jami's new house in Orem, UT (absolutely stunning) and the headed to Melanie's house in Saratoga Springs. We crashed for a while and then some girls headed to Walmart for some craft supplies. I stayed back and had some great conversations with the remaining girls and LeAndrena who popped in for a few hours; and then after the group was back together again we stayed up till 6 am my time with my favorite memory from the retreat. It was a wonderful and powerful discussion that I won't forget. After a brief nap we got up again and worked on some tutu's, and then back to the airport for the long trip home. I didn't land until 12:30 am and then had to wait for the shuttle, and then wait for my mind to clear to remember where I parked the car. I wasn't working on very much sleep..... After a brief stop by a kindly police officer 1/2 a block from home I was back in bad and ready to be a mom again after some much needed sleep. Andi was great for me for the trip and considering that she didn't get real naps and was carted from place to place for three days she was a champion. Soooo much better than Jordan was when I had to take her with me. I'm so grateful for Chris' support in letting me go each year and for the wonderful group of girls that has stayed close after all these years and really become an important part in my life. I can't wait for Kathy's turn to host in CA next year and am already counting down the days and mentally preparing for no sleep for next year. Love you girls!