Girls' Retreat 2014

As part of my plan to get as much girl time in as possible before being entrusted with a tiny such creature of my own, I jetted off to McCall at the the end of March for two days with four of the best girlfriends around:

{Jana, Paulina, Emily, Kara, Nicole... don't worry, there's a better picture of us all at the end of the post...}

I know it appears that I'm kind of an outsider in the picture, but that's just because my stomach area prohibited me from snuggling in as close as, say, Paulina and Emily, hahaha.

First order of business was packing up the car - a process in which Kara proved invaluable as the 'inside woman':

We traveled in serious style; Emily's car is amazing! Alas, it could not make the drive any less curvy and although Paulina was the heavy favorite to get the most carsick, I ended up being the one who forced us off the road at one point so I could very attractively throw up in the snow a bit (it's cool; I'm pregnant). Nausea (and 'the burps' hahaha) aside, it was an excellent drive!

That led to an excellent destination, a timeshare condo in McCall:

Sweet, right? Alas, most of these pictures were taken on our way out two days later, so don't mind our mess :). Our first order of business was to draw names for sleeping arrangements, ending with Kara and Emily bunking together in the master bedroom, Paulina and I sharing the second bedroom with twin beds, and Nicole and baby Myla taking the living room with the pull-down bed that simultaneously awed and alarmed me. 

The rest of the night was spent at the hot tub (Kara, Emily, Nicole), talking and playing with baby Myla back at the condo (Paulina, me), watching a movie (everyone), doing hair/getting hair done (Nicole, Kara) and falling asleep in a chair and being sent to bed two hours before everyone else (me. It's cool; I'm pregnant).

The next morning we all lazily woke up (well, as lazily as five moms can; I think everyone was awake by 8...) and admired the new snow and the wildlife right in our backyard:

before heading to the Pancake House for breakfast. HOLY MOLY, it was amazing. Sooo much yummy food. Most of us went in with someone else to maximize the number of dishes we could sample (except Kara, who kept declaring it all too complicated, haha) and I can personally vouch for the deliciousness of the GIANT cinnamon roll, the omelets, pancakes with coconut syrup, berry filled crepes, and hot chocolate. And happily Paulina provided awesome conversation prompts so we had plenty of time to sit and plenty of things to talk about while we cleaned all of our plates!

The conversations continued as we headed home; we all delved deep into our respective 'how we met/dated/married' stories - most of which we'd all shared before but it's always fun to refresh :). It was at this point I realized how ridiculously coordinated we all were and insisted on some official girls' trip pictures, although Kara decided to kick things off with some candid shots first:

As usual, the picture-taking process was hilarious and ridiculous; I had to run to the bathroom in the middle of it because I was laughing so hard (it's cool; I'm pregnant). Highlights were the upper right picture where it looks like Kara is reaching to caress my baby bump but was actually reaching for my hand (more or less awkward? Debatable...) and the bottom left where I'm clearly sitting ON Nicole and Emily because they didn't leave my wide hips enough room to plop in between them after setting the camera timer.

But we managed one good one!! Kara, baby Myla, Nicole, Jana, Emily, Paulina:

After our photography session, we settled in at the table for a late lunch and Taboo, which also provided laughs and laughs, most notably Emily's unusual but very effective tactic of story-telling to elicit a correct response from her teammate(s). Then it was time to venture back downtown to check out the local shops. 

At one point in our wanderings I pulled out the camera to capture our traipse through the somewhat sketchy 'ice cream alley' and instead managed to capture poor Kara trying to ice skate instead of walk. Luckily she regained her balance quickly (she's a dancer) because it quickly became clear that Paulina was going to make nooo effort to help her, haha. Out of concern for the baby only, Paulina waited and watched to make sure I made it through the frozen section safely :).

After our meanderings, we had just enough time to pick up milkshakes and make it home in time to watch a broadcast of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints General Women's Meeting on Emily's ipad. It was perfect; we were all comfy and the speakers and music were wonderful and yay for technology!

The night was still young, so we hit up the hot tub for a bit before coming home for a delicious late dinner and another movie. It was around this point that we said good night to Emily - and then things got crazy. Apparently Em's the level-headed one in the group? 

It technically started the night before with Kara getting lowlights(?) and BANGS and then Paulina went gorgeously blonder and then there was a lot of facial waxing going on and then Nicole trusted me to wash her hair, which was hilarious because a) my ability to even reach the sink was questionable (it's cool; I'm pregnant) and b) I was SO terrified of messing it up. You know the whole 'shoemaker's kids go barefoot' thing? I felt so bad that our amazing hairstylist was stuck with ME contributing to the well-being of her (normally very beautiful) hair. Luckily we made it through pretty well; I just went heavy on the scalp massage part to smooth over the fact that my lathering was sub-par :).

And then Nicole decided to continue our BANG-ing weekend by cuttin' herself some (adorable) bangs... which sparked Paulina's imagination my direction, haha. And even after I pulled up a picture of my semi-disastrous bangs from elementary school, the vote was still unanimous that I get bang'ed as well:

and Kara channeled her inner Jana and documented the whole thing :). And I love them! Mostly when someone else amazing is on hand to style them for me, of course - like the next morning when Kara awesomely did my hair! And she did Paulina's too, in the sweetest/Swedish braid/side bun configuration ever.

More shots of the snow that McCall showered us with, including Sunday morning when it came time to pack up and head out:

We stopped in Cascade on the way home to attend sacrament meeting, and we really enjoyed the branch there. The two speakers talked about prayer and there was such a sweet spirit there; I was really grateful to have been able to take part. 

And we all survived the drive home with a decent amount of nausea (those roads are seriously. the. worst.) but no unplanned stops along the way :). It actually went by fairly quickly, thanks to some pretty incredible conversation. One of my favorite aspects of this group is discussing pretty serious subject matters; there's so much respect and understanding and intelligence and varying perspectives and thoughtful questions and answers and I love it.

And before we all headed home to reality and families and such, we paused to commemorate the trip one last time:

{Kara, Paulina, Emily, Nicole, Jana. See, I told you this one was better :) }

LOVE you girls! This was just what I needed; can't wait for our next 'retreat'!