Whew! What a fun, happy weekend I’ve had! The whole thing was a big giant whirlwind — it all happened so fast. I had a great time with the quilty peeps. It’s so wonderful to have a girlfriend getaway — we really should do it more often.

We left early Friday morning for the Chicago Quilt Show. As soon as we got there, we made a bee-line for the vendors. I pretty much go to the quilt shows for the vendors these days — the quilts just haven’t seemed to be classic quilt show fare in a long time. I used to love to go to Paducah and I wonder if it’s still the same high quality show that it used to be. Maybe I was just spoiled by attending that show for several years? But, I digress (which isn’t hard to do…I think I’m still tired from my weekend!)

I looked for Sharon and Carol on and off all day but didn’t see them. Once it was time to check in to our hotel room, we left the show for awhile, and when we were re-entering the show, we ran into S & C as they were leaving. What a fun surprise! (We spared Sharon the “mask” greeting this time — but I still have them LOL) We split up again, but then met for dinner in the hotel. After dinner, we got together for some fun in our hotel room.

What a crack-up those two are. Can you spot the bloggers in the crowd???

This is some very serious business! As is our tradition, they’re taking pics of all the booty. It was totally by accident, but can you tell which bed contains the blogger booty and which bed contains the non-blogger booty???

And look again — that picture is too funny. Look how hap-hazzard the bed on the left is and how neat and tidy the bed on the right is — I didn’t even notice that before! What’s up with that??? You’ve probably guessed, the slovenly stuff belongs to the bloggy peeps! What the heck does that say about us bloggers LOL! Sharon claims the territory on the upper left of the blogger bed, Carol has the upper right and my stuff is toward the bottom. What was I thinking? I don’t need all that stuff! I couldn’t help it though — our closest quilt shop is 45 minutes away, so when I see all that fantastic quilty goodness in one place, I go weak in the knees. And, I blame a fair amount of it on Nanette too — seeing all those cute tumbling block quilts that she makes made me buy a tumbling block kit and I RARELY buy kits! Junie gets the prize for the non-blogger bed — look at all those neat rows of fat quarters. Don’t you just want to reach into that picture and rustle that stuff around a little? C’mon Junie — admit it, even YOU want to LOL!!! Jewels bought all the goodies on the left and Gurney claims that little pile up top. Gurney — I admire your strength. I’m blaming it on the fact that you have a brand-spanking new granddaughter and you had your mind elsewhere!

After we got done making a mess of our room, we cleaned things up a bit, broke out the diet pepsi, cupcakes and lemon bars (’cause we party hard LOL) and got down to some crochet business.

We worked on a little circular birthday tag (sorry, I forgot to take a picture — I think Sharon did though) and everyone did a great job. I was very proud of lil’ early bird Jewels — we were up WAY past her bedtime — it was well after midnight when everyone finished. Here they are in a serious moment of concentration — which was rare, most of the time Sharon or Jewels were cracking us up!

We met again in the morning for a leisurely breakfast. (For some reason we were plagued with sad-sack waiters for both meals — S & C are very unfairly blaming it on us quilty peeps LOL.) Then we went back to the quilt show for a few hours. Here’s Jewels and Junie with PamKittyMorning‘s Celebrity.

They’re having a very serious conversation about how much they miss Simply Quilts. The message was “Get Over It and Move On!” OkeyDoke! The two days were WAY too short and we had a fabulous time. Thanks for our cool new tote bags Sharon — we love them! And Jewels was a sweetheart and brought us some goodies too — Thanks Jewels!!!

So, that was Friday and Saturday. On Sunday morning, SweetiePie, TheFirstChild, MeMum and I got up bright and early to drive to Dayton for SweetiePie’s last bridal shower. SweetiePie had her final dress fitting just before the shower (when you live so far away, you have to squeeze in all these activities where you can.) There’s no dress peeking (wouldn’t want TheFirstChild to catch a glimpse, now would we?) but here’s a shot of her pretty shoes.

We had a fun, fun time all the way there and all the way back. We laughed a ton. Let’s just say that there was a lot of “She Said That”* going on. And “Grandma” was the worst offender!
So, I’m a very lucky girl and I’ve had a wonderful weekend to carry me through this next month of fun work until the big day. Thank you, thank you Quilty Peeps, Sharon, Carol, and my little fambly for all the fun memories that will keep a smile on my face for a long, long time!

I hope you all had a great weekend as well — I have lots of blogs to catch up on and I’ve had lots of e-mail — if I’ve missed replying to you, please excuse me — rest assured that I have read everything though!

XOXO,
Anna

*The Quilty Peeps taught me a new game that we called “She Said That.” I’m pretty dense, so it took me a long time to catch on and it would take me even longer to explain it. But, if you watch The Office, you’ll know the dumb game!