Tuesdays With Ande

Last weekend Ande and I went to a scrapbooking retreat in Monroe, Washington.  We had a grand time.  Instead of paragraphing you through our weekend, I'll picture you through it.

Back Row:  Ande, Donna, Anita, me, Jill, Jenny, Tracy, Amanda, Deb
Front Row:  Sonja, Nicole, Sandy
Not pictured:  Susan, Cali

This is who we went with.  This group of friends has evolved from the original friendship of Deb and Donna.  Deb and Donna met each other as consultants for a home-party based business nearly twenty five years ago.  And even though Donna lives on one side of the mountain and Deb on the other, their friendship has outlasted the snowstorms.  One by one, Deb and Donna have added more people to the friendship until now there are over a dozen of us who get together (once, or twice, or several times a year) to scrapbook and work on projects.  Because we spend the time scrapbooking family pictures and memories, by default we also know each other's families.

Sandy, Donna, Nicole, and Sonja organized everything and assigned the meals, coordinated little gifts, and warmed and heated peppermint-scented washcloths for us in the evening.  (Donna's mantra is "it's all in the packaging"  and she skillfully lives it.)

Four different ways to serve a s'more

Harry Potter fun

Sandy serving warm washcloths

Ande at the sprinkles table

Cali brought Levin up Friday afternoon to meet everyone.  He went from one mother and one grandmother to a dozen in a moment.  Everyone was excited for Cali and Ray and immediately welcomed Levin to the scrapbook club.

Ande and Levin

Ande worked on several projects while we were there -- she put together frames, a memory box, and made a birthday present for me.

She started and finished this gift within an hour:

(It now hangs on our dining room wall and looks wonderful.  I love it.  She chose to paint my favorite flower:  a carnation.  She also made Idaho Spud cupcakes for my birthday.  They were really good.  I ate six before it was over.)

I was walking around the scrapbook room enjoying everyone's work and projects when we got to the retreat.  I stopped to admire Sandy's jar of wooden spools on her work table.  I oohed and ahhed, looked closely at them, and told her what a great idea it was and that I wanted to duplicate it.  I went back to my scrapbook table and opened a package from my sister Rachel that I had picked up at the mailbox on my way to the retreat, but hadn't yet opened.  I opened up the box to a jar of wooden spools.  Serendipity!  

I got 50 cards made, nearly 30 pages scrapbooked, and finished a few small projects at the retreat.  Several of us went to a craft store and flea market while we were there, too.  I found a few great deals and will post them as well as a couple of the projects tomorrow in a Homemaking Tips post.

The retreat was more than flea market deals, cards, pages, or projects, it was spending the time with Ande and also visiting with friends.  And laughing.  That group laughs so easily.  We had a grand time.