Friend Weekend

I met Christie way back in the early 2000s, before we even wanted to have children. In fact, we attended a Bible study together where the leader was pregnant and her horror stories convinced us that pregnancy was not going to be for us! I'm thinking it was 2003 when Christie moved to Maryland with her Coast Guard husband from Oregon. She didn't know anyone, but was working with one of my Mom's friends. This friend knew that Christie needed a friend and that I knew about Oregon so she invited Christie and I to a home decor party. It was a garden flag party to be exact. It took us about 2 seconds of talking for me to ask her what town in Oregon she was from and I wish I had a picture of her face when I said I knew exactly where Newport was. We attended the same type of private school, in fact, playing sports against each other. I knew of her pastor's family. Needless to say, our friendship was destined from the beginning. Now that Christie and her family are back on the East Coast in the same town as my in laws (!!!) we see other on a semi infrequent basis, but rarely have extended time to really talk.

Last weekend that extended time happened. We went to Raleigh, NC for the Girls Club Getaway conference with Sally, Sarah and Joy Clarkson. The speakers were good, but, honestly, the real fun was the time we got together. The more than 5 hour drive to Raleigh, NC from Martinsburg was non stop talking.

We arrived a little late and missed the official registration time so we marked ourselves off the registration list and picked up the papers and then walked all around the conference room to carefully choose our table. We chose the table with vintage hankies and a handmade pouch for purse kleenx.

Actually the colors are very much Christie's colors. Everyone gathered at 6:30 for chocolate and fellowship. We thought we were going to be served some kind of chocolate dessert and then realized that the chocolate was whatever foil wrapped delicacy the table hostess provided. It was yummy! We had a good laugh at ourselves anyway.

The real luxury was spending a second night after the conference was over. We walked around mall until our Cheesecake Factory carry out meal was ready and ate a macaroon to tide us over.

And then we watched HGTV and ate our Cheesecake Factory dinner and talked until 11:00. We did listen to a few podcasts on the way home as our conversation was slowing down. lol.