My Girlfriend Time!!

My Girlfriend Time!!

Time with your girlfriends is the most rejuvenating.   It can be a quick happy hour, leisurely lunch, shopping trip or our annual girls weekend.  Who else would enjoy Black Friday shopping, a quick glass of wine, or trying to save as much as you can using the Extreme Couponing strategies?  My family would roll their eyes and make up other plans to get out of such craziness!  My girlfriends on the other hand would send out emails in order to get the entire group of us involved.

My girlfriends mean he world to me and I look forward to our girlfriend getaway each year more than anything!  Some years it’s long planned and other years it’s a spur of the moment invitation.  Regardless, it is the most anticipated vacation of my year.  Not all years are there 10 of us, sometimes only 5, but that time away is always the best. We laugh until our face hurts, stomach is in pain, and we literally pee ourselves from laughing so hard!  

During that time away, we break away from reality and only have to think about yourself.  No kids, no spouses, no household duties…. only us.  That is what makes this a true vacation!   Our ideal accommodation is a house or condo that we can all stay together.  We enjoy having a living room that we can all congregate but then bedrooms were we can have our personal space.  We’ve tried having individual hotel rooms and we’ve tried having a couple of different condos but it seems to defeat the purpose of “being together”.  We need one big house, one living room, one kitchen, one fridge, one Jacuzzi etc so we can always be together.  We have found what works best for us at either Lakeland Village in South Lake Tahoe, CA and most recently at Sea Ranch on the Northern California coast near Gualala, CA.   We are always looking for the perfect place and location in order to have other options for our getaways.  Suggestions welcome!

Sitting back and watching the dynamic of a bunch of women on vacation is funny.  You see girls fighting to putter, clean, cook, make beds, fold towels, and other household duties.  We set out snacks, offer refills, straighten the magazine pile, and clear the dinner table.  You cannot change what is automatically programmed in our genes, even when on vacation!  It’s humorous to watch!

Our days are filled with fun activities enjoyed together.  We go out for lunch, make dinner, watch chick flicks, drink margaritas, share good wine, go for a walks, enjoy nature and admire the scenery.  We have massages, facials, manicures, and pedicures.  We shop in boutiques, galleries, book stores, and tourist traps.  We go to casinos and check out local activities.  Some days we sleep in, read books, play on our computers and get caught up on the games we play on our phones.  No matter what are days are filled with, laughs are never missing.  We are able to visit and get caught up on eachother's lives.  This is the what is important.  :)

The time spent together is better than the hour on a psychiatrist couch!  We can solve each others problems, provide support for tough decisions, and commiserate with children and spouse issues.  It’s a reminder for each of us that the grass isn’t always greener, it’s just different.  We all have all lost parents, have adult kids that need assistance, have a home to take care of, jobs to complete and our own sanity to keep on an even keel.  This time together with girlfriends is so important and makes me who I am as a person, wife, mother and friend!

Thank you to Michelle, Vicki, Tracy, Char, Shannon, Stephanie, Stacy, Nicki, Melanie and to all the girls who have spend the girl's weekends with us.