ScrapMania

Finally- Two weeks after the fact- I'm getting some photos posted of our Girls' Trip to Highlands. DJ, Del, Barb and I left Wednesday afternoon and headed up the road ("up" being the operative word here.) You know how when you're driving around in the mountains and you look waaaaay up and see houses perched at the peak of the mountain? Yep. That's where we were. Up and up we drove, around swervy, curvy, hairpin turns, far into the clouds, until finally we arrived at our turnoff-- just a teeny little one-way road that was at least a 70 degree grade. Well, maybe 30-45. Anyway, it was a very steep, very narrow road (driveway-like). After a trecherous few minutes, we arrived at the house safely, to find it quite frigid inside. We promptly bumped up the thermostat, and were a little nervous when we heard all manner of noises coming from within the bowels of the heating system. Reminiscent of our last trip (where we had no heat at all the first night on another cold winter weekend), we crossed our fingers and prayed that the furnace would hold up. Slowly but surely the icicles melted off our noses and by the next morning we were quite toasty. Come morning, though, we started taking turns bringing in firewood (that Mr. Robert so wisely insisted we take-- Thank you, Mr. Robert!!!). There's a marvelous wood-burning stove in the basement, and we got a fire going pretty early. Once, when it was my turn, I realized that I had locked myself out of the house. I knocked... to no avail... everyone had gone back to the basement. Fortunately, I had my cell phone with me. Fortunately, Delores had her phone in the basement. Let me tell you, it was quite chilly out in the elements in just my jammies. I shudder to think what would have happened if Del hadn't taken her phone downstairs. I could have been gone for days before they missed me. Just a frozen statue on the porch. But at least I was wearing cute jammies. Oh yeah... did I mention the weekend attire? It's very easy to pack (at least our clothes) for our scrap weekends. Anything goes. But usually it's jammies and sweats. I took one pair of jeans and one shirt to wear home and four pairs of jammies. (We do bathe and change into fresh clothes/jammies/sweats) Now. Onto the good stuff. Oh the scrap crap we took on our trip!! We had enough stuff to open a store, I believe! Amazingly, we didn't even take all the stuff we own!! The reason we like to go to this place is because of the huge basement. I shot this first photo sitting at my table in one corner of the basement. There were six of us scrapping, and we all had our tables set up around the perimeter of the room. DJ, Del, Barb and I had our own tables, while Debbie B. and Tangela set up on the ping-pong table. The pool table in the center of the room served as a catch-all and a place for quickie projects. The best thing about this setup? Work as long as you want, walk away from the table and leave the mess until you're ready to come back. Go upstairs and have a snack, a shower, a nap... whatever. Ahhh... this is the life!! And did I mention the snow? We had snow on our last trip too, but it was pretty much gone by morning. This time it snowed a little bit Saturday night, (first photo), then Sunday morning we got up to this.... Isn't it beautiful? It was a MOST fabulous weekend, and we're already looking forward to next year. I love these women so much and it was great to be together for a few days to relax and recharge. Not to mention work on our scrapbooks! Between us all, we got around 200 pages done. That's a lot! DJ and Delores finally convinced me to use the Cricut, and oh my goodness.. now I'm addicted too. I had no idea. (Which is exactly why I have refrained from using it all this time. I can't afford one, can't justify buying one, and didn't want to want one!) It is a right dandy little contraption, though, and Tangela figured out how to use the software that goes with it, and, well... let's just say it's amazing. Thanks a LOT DJ and Del!!!

Here are a few more photos of our trip. You should be able to click on the pictures to enlarge. You'll notice one girl not scrappingm but sitting on the sofa reading. Umm Hmm. That's Marty. This was her first time going away with us. I'm not sure if we inspired her to take up scrapbooking, or if we scared her off for good. She was too busy watching out for bears to get very serious about SBing, though. At any rate, we were delighted to have her along this time. Especially me, because of the amazing trick she introduced me to! Click on the arrow underneath the first photo for a quickie video of the snow falling. You can also hear the neighbor's dogs barking. (Or was that mountaintop wilderness coyotes??)

The last photo is all of us girls together. L-R Marty, Delores, Debbie B, Tangela, DJ, Barb and me. (Tangela is standing barefoot in the snow.) Can't wait til next year!!!