Girls' Weekend 2011

The weekend before last, Kate, James, Elsa, and I hit the road (on that Thursday, actually) for North Carolina. By Thursday evening, Kate and I were on our own and met up with our good friend, Valerie, all of us friends from high school. On our way, though, we dropped Elsa off with my parents in Charlotte, and then James off with Kate's parents in High Point. Fearing that Elsa might be upset when I dropped her and ran, I went prepared with a new toy to leave with her. In the end, I do not think it was necessary. She seemed completely fine being left in the loving, capable hands of her grandparents and, without tears, waved and said goodbye to me from the window at the front door. This made my departure so much easier.

After an indulgent dinner at a Mexican restaurant, we arrived at Valerie's house. We stayed up for awhile chatting with Val and her husband, Casey, but did not last too terribly long before calling it a night. The next morning, we went out to a local Lewisville diner for breakfast with Val and Casey and their two youngest boys, Charlie and Carter (their oldest, Coulson, was at school). I had a cheese omelet (cheating with my avoidance of eggs) with a sinful amount of bacon inside, homefries, and decaf coffee. It was diner food at its most diner-ish. And it pretty much hit the spot.

After breakfast, we dropped the boys at home and then headed out for the most amazingly reasonable pedicure I have yet received. Being it was just a married couple working at the salon, they could only work on two of us at a time, but we each had a chair, and they could kind of switch between us all in stages. Their massage chairs left a little to be desired, but beyond that, the pedicure was fabulous. They probably lasted an hour, and even included a paraffin wax dip, which left our feet feeling oh so smooth.

We stopped back by the house once more so Val could take care of a few things and say goodbye to her boys, and then we headed for the mountains. We stopped for a quick bite in Wilkesboro, and then did some grocery shopping in West Jefferson, but were at Kate's place in Lansing just as dusk was setting in. We were not sure what was in store for us as far as snow accumulation was concerned, so Val's dad was kind enough to let us borrow his big four-wheel-drive truck for the trip. We likely could have gotten by without it, but it was nice to have for at least the long, snow-covered driveway.

Us girls settled into the farmhouse, and it did not take us long to start preparing food. Brownies were in the oven, guacamole was being prepared, and meat was sizzling on the stove. We ended up with a nacho dinner that probably could have fed at least twice the number of us, if not more. But they were delicious. As were the brownies and hot cocoa. We watched a movie, but I struggled to make it to the end. Between the travel, recovering from a string of multiple viruses, a headache (that lasted on and off all weekend -- annoying!), and an extremely full tummy, I was dragging myself up the stairs and into bed soon after the movie was over.

I did not sleep as late as I thought I might have, but it was still nice not to have to get up and immediately start taking care of a toddler. Instead, I woke up very leisurely, and sauntered down to the kitchen to make blueberry muffins and cook up some bacon. We ate our breakfast and headed out the door in time to drive in, and past, Boone to Hawksnest, where we had reservations for snow tubing. I used to work at Hawksnest while in college, when it was still an actual ski slope. It is where I decided skiing was not my thing, but found a love in snowboarding. Now it is just a tubing (and zip-lining) facility, but the place still brought back some memories. The weather was quite warm that Saturday, so we started out a little disappointed with the tubing conditions, finding ourselves walking us and our tubes down the tailends of the chutes because the snow was warming up enough to slow us to a stop. By the end of our session, however, we (or, should I say, Kate) had figured out which chutes were the fastest, and there was one in particular that was super fun if we hooked our three tubes together. We had a good time, and decided our kids would love going with us in the future.

Back at the house, we found that the plastic sleds Kate had ordered online, prior to the trip, had arrived. It did not take long for Val and Kate to be out on the surrounding, partially snow-covered hillsides, trying out their slick rides. I just did not have it in me, and decided to warm up inside. They came back in, smiling from ear to ear, insisting I join them in the fun the next day.

We had a pasta and salad dinner (again, insane portions) and started watching something else on television, knitting when we were not feeding ourselves. I think I made it a little later that evening, but still called it a night before the other girls. And this particular night I decided to take advantage of the earplugs Kate had given me. I woke up a couple of times during the night, but managed to stay in bed until 9:00 a.m., which is just unheard of for me. It was fantastic. After breakfast, I was convinced to don the warm clothes again and try out the sledding. It was much more intense than the tubing, but lots of fun... until I flipped out of my sled on about my fourth or fifth run and whacked a couple of limbs and my chin. That was that for me.

 Kate and Val

 Me

Kate and Val on their bellies

Leisure was our guide through morning and lunch until we found it necessary to pack up the truck and head back down the mountain. We had dinner with Casey and Carter, and then Kate and I headed to High Point to pick up James. The poor little guy had to fall asleep in the car and be transferred into my parents house once we got to Charlotte that evening. Elsa was already asleep, so when it was time for me to go to bed, I quietly snuck into her room and climbed under the covers.

I slept terribly, for various reasons, but it was fun to hear Elsa wake up and notice me there in bed. She did not seem overly excited to see me, but wanted me to pick her up and just kept poking her finger into me and saying "This is mommy. Hi mommy." And then she would lay her head on my shoulder and make a cute sighing, "awwing" noise. That was good enough for me. (She did the same thing with her daddy when we got home and saw him.) Apparently she had a blast while I was gone. I talked to her on the phone a couple of times while away, and she seemed totally fine and would tell me about all the fun things she did with Grandma and Grandpa -- they went to parks, flew Grandpa's "Sweet Pea" model plane, road on a train and a carousel, went out to eat, watched Dr. Seuss. Needless to say, she was a spoiled little girl, and I am sure she would love to be left there again in a heartbeat.

The drive home was as tedious as ever, but it was good to get home and see Jarrett and hear about his fun weekend with Tim, full of fishing, resting, and good eats. The time with the girls was wonderful, but, as usual, it did not seem long enough. I think Kate and I have decided that four nights must be the magic number.