the BEST weekend EVER!!

I've finally got my act together enough to deal with the photos I took at the best retreat ever, last weekend! So here's a rundown in pics:

Friday the 13th - and I got on my first plane flight EVER. I was just a BIT scared. Poor Tessie felt the full force of a newly applied set of acrylics in her thigh I can tell you! Especially when we bloody went SIDEWAYS to turn into Lincoln. No one told me they would do THAT! I freaked out a teeny bit when I realised the horizon was at totallly the wrong angle!

So while Toni and Kerryn drove the 600kms by road, Tess and I spent 35 minutes in the air! The girls were a bit excited to finally be on their way I think, and, having left at 6:30am, they actually beat us there!

We arrived at 2pm, met at the cutest little airport in the world, by the gorgeous Amanda and lovely Sue. Thank You for picking us up!!

We were at the accomodations just a few minutes later, we were staying in this cute Lions Hostel:

With a stunning view:

We got so many freebies on arrival, a personalised coffee mug, T shirt transfer, ID pass, goodie bag! The shed looked AMAZING I was so impressed with every little detail.

First thing first, of course we were straight into the shopping. Plenty of stuff there to choose from, I could practically have left everything home and got it all there! And you'd think I did, going by how much I managed to buy!!!

We spread ourselves out on our luxuriously spacious table and got stuck right in!

Pizza and garlic bread on the lawn for dinner followed by a group class, playing with these cute collections houses (these are Tessie's, mine are [cough cough] not finished yet... )

After the class we were all back into the free scrap when the power went out! DISASTER! There was no way we were letting it ruin the night though! We barely stopped cutting and pasting!!! LOL, the candles came out and it was quite lovely! Luckily the lights were back on within half an hour.

I managed 3 layouts on Friday night! Unheard of!!!

Saturday, and after breakfast we popped down to the beach to check out the stunning view, before we were back to the tables early. I was mojoless, but it was a great day. There were 2 classes on Saturday that we had decided not to attend, as we wanted maximum free scrap time, but the projects the girls made were fabulous!

The food didn't stop the whole weekend. Val was topping up lolly bowls every hour it seemed, everytime I looked up there was a new platter of fruit or yummy cheeses and dips, I'm not sure why we brought our own snacks!!!?? Lunch was assorted rolls and cold meats with the best pasta salad and coleslaw ever! (I got the recipe before I left, and bought all the ingredients today!!)

It was Toni's birthday on Thursday and Kerryn brought a bag of surprises for her, including this cute pin cusion for her hat pin collection. Toni asked me to photograph it, so I stuck it in the grass. Too cute!

In the evening we headed across the road to the Pub for dinner.

It was a great night - those girls are a crack up! But I would have preferred to eat Val and Lorrae's food again! The meal was pretty ordinary. We decided on the walk home that we were getting into our PJs as soon as we got back, so we had a little slumber/scrap party in the scrap shed! Major raffle time, and our table was looking pretty unlucky for a while there, but in the end we all won a little something!

I had a few too many wines and didn't get to bed until after 3am, and as Kerryn put it so politely on her blog, I was SLOW to get going on Sunday morning! LOL, but I had Amanda's class to attend so I dragged myself to the showers, and several panadols and approximately 16 litres of water later, I was doing OK! Luckily, as it was group photo time! This photo was taken on the timer by Tiff. (I just boosted the colours a bit!)

Amanda's class was awesome! LOVE what we made!

Here's our stack of layouts from the weekend:

Another delicious lunch and I noticed people were packing up. Nooooooo! The weekend was all but over. Before Kerryn and Toni headed off for their long drive home, we roped Amanda into taking a few pics of us in a mini photo shoot. We have been trying to get a nice pic of the 4 of us together for ages! Thanks!

When we had waved the girls off, I went and had a little nap! Hehe!

Amanda was kind enough to take us to the airport again, and surprisingly, I REALLY enjoyed the flight home. Well, maybe not so much the sideways bit!

But I was very relaxed, and could appreciate the experience this time.

Man, someone is going to be in so much trouble if I don't get to go again next year! I am counting down the days already! It was such a fabulous weekend.

These girls: (no idea who took the photo BTW, I stole it from the E2C blog!!) Amanda (beautiful), Merideth (hilarious), Sue (sweetheart), Lorrae (lovely), Tiff (gorgeous) and Val (amazing) did such a brilliant job. You'd think they were professionals and had been managing mammoth events for years. Everything was perfect.

I am SO SAD it is over :(