Girls' Retreat 2015

The last Saturday in March marked the Official EmNiKaPaMeNyJa Girls' Retreat 2015 and it was fantastic.

Oh man, I love the girls in this picture so much that I'm not even going to let the breakdown of the no sunglasses/sunglasses pattern get me down - next time I'll double check and hie my way over to the other side of Emily and all will be well.

Emily, Nicole, Kara, Paulina, Melinda, Nycole, Jana

I'll tell you why I probably didn't think to do it at the time - I was too completely embarrassed. We had wandered out of the candy shoppe and before we went any further, I wanted a picture of the whole gang and so I gestured about and said something like, "Let's just grab someone to take our picture, like that kid in the Hawaiian shirt over there."  We stood there (I feel like we were all sampling someone's candy? Emily's gummy creatures?) for a minute without any real aim or direction when suddenly the aforementioned kid AND HIS MOM came up and asked if we wanted a picture. Say what? Oh that's right, I never learned to whisper so they definitely heard me. Why people let me out in public, I'll never know. Buuuut we got a super cute picture out of it, so there ya go!

You may remember that last year, we ventured out to the wilds of McCall, Idaho for our retreat and it was, in fact, a weekend trip. This year various forces conspired to keep us closer to home buuuuut we managed to still make it feel like we traveled to a foreign place: The Village.

Okay, maybe it just felt foreign to me because I rarely leave my living room and had never been to this magical conglomerate of shoppes and restaurants and fountains. 

FIRST, we met at Zupas for lunch and I was late but awesomely managed to walk in at the same time as Emily so that we could brave the line together - is it just me or is that place kind of intense? Luckily Em had my back and we made it to our table where I launched into my exciting moving van story and then graciously allowed other people to share some "exciting" "news" that they had. It's hard to trump a story where pieces of the moving van you are driving fall out of the back onto the road and you have to scurry across traffic to retrieve them (intrigued, eh? More in a future post...) but Em and Kara did their best.

NEXT, we headed over to the aforementioned Village and found Nycole and also maybe a small hotel in the middle of the place? All I know is the bathrooms were the most luxurious I've seen and there was a concierge. We ambled through the streets (which I feel like were cobblestone? I should have taken a picture) and in and out of a few establishments.

We also indulged in some fun that shopping with children rarely allows - like trying on hats! And jewel-encrusted butterfly masks! Who knows, future girls' retreats may include formal teas in England or masquerade balls or something - super important to be prepared. We also got to browse with purpose - Melinda was a good enough sport to have a tropical vacation lined up a couple of weeks later and recruited all of us to help find cute accessories. In fact, our next destination was Ross (outside the Village gates!) and I don't want to take alll the credit for finding the perfect white beach-y, semi-formal dress that she needed.... but I will, since I am the one that found it ;).

At this point, the day took a more spiritual turn and we all shimmied into skirts and hit up a stake center for the broadcast of the women's session of General Conference!

I mean, we didn't coordinate our outfits as well as the general presidency of the Relief Society, but I still feel like that thumbs up is directed at us.

It was a beautiful hour and a half and this nice woman on the Internet used her artistic talents to make cute printables of some of my favorite quotes from it:

There was definitely a recurring theme of strong homes and strong families and I loved the reminder of my crucial role in protecting my home and ensuring that it's a place where my children and husband feel loved and safe and valued and encouraged to grow and where the Spirit can reside.

This scripture really struck me today as I was going through pictures for this post - not to get tooo sappy, but I am so incredibly grateful for the friendships I have. There's such a stereotype of women being catty and competitive and putting each other down, and that's one reason why I love the Relief Society so much - a collection of women who love each other and learn and teach side by side and serve and work. 

I see so much of this manifested in our girls' group; a few months ago I sent a message asking if we had a plan (meaning a time/place for girls' night) and Kara jokingly responded "We plan on talking and laughing and supporting each other through the good times and the bad", which I just thought was so lovely and true.

After the broadcast, we hit up the Cheesecake Factory for a wonderful late dinner/deep doctrinal discussions and having only been there like one and a half times before, I just picked a salad kind of at random and ended up with a plate bigger than my head full of luau goodness:

 Oh man it was good.

 And that was our girls' retreat 2015! Can't wait for next year's - I feel like by then we'll have agreed on a design for our t-shirts ;).