Girl's (and Guy's) Weekend

While the guys were in Wenatchee, playing (responsibly) with these...

Us girls all met in Portland to have a girls weekend. It originally was going to be a dress up, wear your heels, go out for sushi and shop and celebrate being girls sort of Girl's Weekend, but due to sick children we ended up scraping those plans in true mother/female-adapt-to-all-situations-style, and it became a put jammies on, drink wine and eat chocolate and snuggle on the couch and talk until hoarse, solve all the world's problems sort of Girl's Weekend. It was a blast regardless--it always is. The Sheriff and Auntie G came UP, The Cowboy and Auntie A and Miss Jewel came UP, and Auntie Caca came DOWN, and Me, and Kiki and Debris came DOWN, and Shelby and Kage and LKR and SE (missed you Aunt B!) came OVER. And we had a whole lot of fun.

We got to meet Miss Jewel, the sweet little munchkin. Can I just say that being an Aunt is the coolest thing ever?! Being a mom is amazing, and I love it. But, being an Aunt means you get all that love, and none of the responsibility. Of course, I don't get to see each of my nieces very much due to long distances, but I'm still considering the whole Aunt thing pretty awesome.

My girls also fell in deep smit with this darling cousin of theirs.

We went out for coffee, and laughed until we cried, a lot...

My momma... who hosted us all...

Miss Jewel pretty much never stops smiling. I almost had to make her nickname on my blog Smiley, because it was just amazing to me. She hands them out so freely, and yet you still feel like you got a huge prize every time you get one.

Part of girl's weekend is eating out... meaning NO DISHES. Thank you to Mom and Auntie Ten, who fed us all so generously. When I say we laughed until we cried, we actually did, several times. Laughter is such good medicine... And, it's the best medicine of all when you're laughing with those you know and love. Strawberry Shortcake Jammie Pants... flannel backed satin. For all the little one's... Due to sickness, throwing up, as well as just the general dervish nature of little girls, I never got pictures of them all together. Bummer. The Photography Fairies were not my friend on this weekend. They (the kids, not the nasty photog fairies) sure were cute tho. Aw, the TOES! The sweet precious baby toes. Were I a freak, I'm pretty certain I would have a foot fetish. Thank goodness I'm not a freak. HA!

And, any number of kid pics below, that I couldn't really find the motivation for narrowing down, because I liked them all. :-)

My excuse for this is that I'm storing up motivation for a few huge projects I have around here. Yes, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it! :-)

Note the whirly-ing dervish situation behind S. :-) Now for the Oscar-Style thank you--Thanks to all my dearest loved ones of the male persuation, for allowing this to happen so cheerfully before you knew you were getting a guy's weekend out of it, of the female persuasion for all the work and travel and money that went into it, my Momma, my sisters--both blood, and sisters of the heart, each are so precious to me. And our daughters, who are forming lifelong friendships and appreciation for each other before our eyes. It was an epic Girl's Weekend, and I can't wait for the next. If you haven't had a Girl's Weekend recently, you should. I highly recommend it, and would even call it vital to our strength as wives and mothers.