Fun Time Away

Well we were a bit later getting out of town than we expected to. But not too late. We got to our hotel and checked in around 4:45. We headed up to our room and decided that we really didn't have time to go eat at a restaurant before getting over to the Civic Center by 6:00, when the doors opened. So we ended up just ordering room service.

We were within walking distance from where we needed to go. Right across the street from our hotel was a mall. We actually ended up just walking through the mall to get to the conference (since it was raining). We ended up sitting in the upper level, but we had a great view and we weren't surrounded by too many people, so it was actually more comfortable than being down on the floor. We decided to come back and sit in the same seats on Saturday too.

Beth was great as usual. She is so animated when she speaks that she just draws you in to what she is saying and is quite funny as well. Travis Cottrell and his praise team were awesome too. No Mandisa this time though. :(

After the conference was over around noon on Saturday, we (the 5 of us from our small group plus one of the ladies' sister) headed out to get some lunch at an Italian place called Gratzi. It was very yummy. Then we dropped our things off in our hotel room and hit the mall. We spent several hours just walking around and shopping! It was so much fun, even though I only purchased a couple of things. After shopping, we headed back to our hotel to decide what we wanted to do for dinner. We heard as we were walking back in the hotel that there was a manager's reception for all guests every night from 5:30 to 7:30. It was already about 7:00 but we went down to check it out.

They have different hors d'oeuvres every night. That night they had a spinach dip (very good, and not e coli infested) with chips and these little slices of bread with cream cheese and salmon on them. Apparently they had little sandwiches before we got down there too, but they were gone. They also had free cocktails and soft drinks. All free for guests! After that, we headed back to the room and snacked on wheat thins, and dark chocolate kit kats and called it dinner. We also played a game called Dirty Minds that one of the ladies bought at the mall. Very funny game! We also did facials and scrubbed our feet and did our nails. One of the ladies in the group sells Arbonne, so we got to use the goods.

Sunday we slept in and went down to a free breakfast. They had a bar set up with scrambled eggs, hash browns, French toast, biscuits, sausage gravy, and grits. They also had an entire bar of different kinds of fruits. They had cereals, any kind of juice you could want, soft drinks, tea, and coffee. AND a cook to order omelet bar. They had all the fresh ingredients out and you could just tell the lady what you wanted in it and she made it right there in front of you. She also served freshly made pancakes, and bacon and sausage. We were all completely stuffed!!

We requested a late check out for 1:00. After our breakfast settled, 3 of us headed down to check out the hot tub for a while. We got down there and the hot tub was WAY too hot. We joked that the jets weren't' even on, it was just boiling. We couldn't even get in it. We were able to get in the heated pool though.

After hanging out, chatting in the pool for a while, we headed back up to the room to get showers and packed up. We headed out at 1:00. We ended up stopping for an early dinner/late lunch at Red Lobster. After that it was on home to our families! (Me to my poor sick baby!)

It was such a fun weekend hanging out with the girls. Lots of fun and laughter. It is so great to have such a wonderful group of friends. I feel so comfortable with all of them and feel like I can tell them anything, and truly be myself with them and they don't judge me. And, they all feel the same way. We are going to try to start meeting again regularly. It is difficult for us to try to meet every week, so we have it on the calendar to meet 2 Monday evenings in October.