Girls Weekend Away!

I'm finally getting around to blogging about this. Every time I'd think about it, I just didn't know where to start or what to say about it. Finally I realized that my favorite parts about this weekend are too personal to blog about, so I'm not going to try. These ladies are just amazing. I'm grateful for everything we shared and the good times we had.

So here's a somewhat superficial post about my fun weekend with these fabulous women. (To clarify, it was a weekend away for them, but not for me because they came to Scottsdale. Niiiice!)

We did a LOT of swimming at the hotel. (Does lounging on floaties count as swimming?) Anyway, this is the group. Left to right is Steph, Pam, me, Polly and Lynn. (If you want to know how I met Steph, Polly, and Lynn, see my previous posts here and here.) Pam was new to the group, also from Sparkpeople. The only one who knew her was Lynn, but we were happy to have her along. This whole experience has made me open and enthusiastic about meeting new people. It's been fun. :)

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As an aside, there was a poolside bar which served drinks and ridiculously expensive sandwiches and fruit. Also the absolutely best french fries I've ever had in my life. I'm tempted to go down there in my swimsuit, pretend I'm a guest, and order some. Yum.

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Polly bought everyone a round of drinks, which you see here. Steph and I had Virgin Strawberry Daquiris, which I think is the grown up way to say "Strawberry Slushie". It was quite good!

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Lynn is a Superwoman. She truly is.

This is the very lovely lady who took the pool picture for us. I do remember her name, but I won't say it in case she doesn't want that on the world wide web. I'd say half the people we saw at the pool we ended up talking to for some length of time. I'm getting pretty comfortable talking with perfect strangers. People are fascinating.

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I won't go into all the people we met and the conversations we had... or the Jewish wedding party we almost crashed. I really thought we were going to do it too because we had an invite from the father of the bride AND her Uncle Steve, so it's not really crashing then, is it? I was stoked, man! You'll never guess who chickened out... Polly. I was so disappointed! But later on when we passed the banquet room and saw everyone had settled down around the tables I was glad we didn't go in. Mingling is one thing, but that would've been awkward (whether we'd met half the people in there at the pool or not!).

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And the food. I must give a least a partial account of the food. Thursday night everyone came to my house and I fed them Indian Fry Bread, then Friday I made Crockpot Enchilada Casserole which we let cook in their room while we swam. It was awesome. Friday night we went to Rancho Pinot Grill, a place recommended to us by Scott. It was pretty good!

Here we all are...

And with Scott.

Now, guys are NOT allowed during a Girls' Weekend Away. (And believe me, Lynn's beau Drew really tried to convince us to let him come.) But Scott is different. He knew how to show up at the pool, this restaurant, etc just long enough to spoil us, have fun briefly visiting with us, and make us feel like queens, but he never stayed so long that it kept us from having our girl time and girl chats. Lynn dubbed him Pamperer Extraordinaire and I'd say that's about right.

The Rancho Pinot Grill is across the street from their hotel and Scott's restaurant, so Scott gave Lynn and Polly a ride back in the golf cart.
The next day Polly returned the favor by giving him (and me and Steph) a ride in her new Camero.

Ooooooh yeah!

I think this car suits Polly perfectly! It was only 3 or 4 days old in this picture.

Polly's words as soon as we were done taking pictures? "Okay, stop touching my car now!" LOL!

That night (Saturday) we had dinner at Flemings, which has been a fantastic experience every time I've gone. We requested our same waitress, Michelle, who's expecting her second baby (yay!). It was so fun to see her again. Earlier that day she was talking to the poor guy who was assigned to our table. She asked him if he remembered us from last time, and his response was a terrified, "Oh, the water!!" LOL! We had to tease him about that.

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You know, I can't believe that we didn't think to take pictures at this restaurant. We'll have to remember next time. If you're looking for a great restaurant, this is the place to go. The food is amazing.

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After dinner we were planning on going to see Rock Lobster again, but right before we left there was a bit of... um... drama. I won't go into it, but I think Pam got some bad news via her text and it upset her. I don't know for sure because she wouldn't talk about it. Anyway, she ended up going to bed and the rest of us went out. That was hard on Lynn - she has a firm Girls' Weekend Rule that no one gets left behind. But there also comes a point where you have to respect another person's wishes, and Pam really wanted to be alone.

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Anyway, instead of going to Rock Lobster, we ended up walking around the galleries there in Scottsdale.

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(Sorry Lynn, I know you don't like this picture but I don't know why. I think it's cool!)

Love the purse!

This picture feels symbolic to me. This is what I've been doing for the last several months of my life... staring things down. Illness. Trauma. Insecurities. Doubts. Fears. I'm not running from the bulls in my life anymore. It feels good.

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This has been a truly pivotal year for me. I'm not the same person today that I was six months ago, one month ago, or even one week ago. And I know I'm not done yet. I'm in the middle of a transformation that has been thrilling, exhausting, frightening, liberating, and wonderful.

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There are many people and many events, good and bad, that have contributed to all the changes I've gone through. This girls' weekend and the one back in May have both been part of it. It's been amazing.

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As we were walking past one of the galleries, Lynn was ahead of Polly and so saw what was inside before Polly did.

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"Don't look," she says to Polly.

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I look and see a larger-than-life sized clown, all contemporary and artsy looking. "She's afraid of clowns," Lynn says to me.

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I look back at Polly, knowing full well that she's going to look in spite of the warning. Sure enough. She looked, she flinched, we laughed.

Scary!!

This is the second time we've gotten pics of Steph with horse sculptures, which is appropriate because she used to own horses. I've decided that's the recurring theme of our weekends. Horses. (Not the other theme girls... at least, not on the blog. ;)

This is the same place in the hotel lobby where we took the final group picture last time. I think that needs to be a tradition. (It wasn't nearly as late this time, though!)

Before I said my final goodbyes, we sat at a table by the pool and just talked for awhile. When I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the sky, this is what I saw:

I love this picture too, not just because it looks cool but because it makes me remember how I felt at that moment: happy, peaceful (and yes, a little tired because it was late).

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Thank you for the great weekend girls. I can't wait until next time.