every year my mom tries with all of her might to rally the troops aka her daughters and get us to journey with her to every quilt shop from brigham city down to springville. as a youth, i was connived into these excursions and learned early on that this was NOT part of my responsibilities. i never thought twice about this event again until my sister jenny gave in last year and went along for the ride only to come home cursing the hours spent en route. i could only find a good laugh in her misery and basically gave her a "i told you so"!unfortunately for jenny and i, my sister lyssa, who know lives in WA, was down for a visit and was all too willing to join my mom on this 2 day event. and so began the guilt trip. "you HAVE TO GO with us! how can you not when i am usually gone during this?! we can make a fun girls adventure out of it! come on!?" and so that's how this all began....
every shop had their own "theme" and there were a few that soon became our favorites. one of the best shops which also had some pretty fun activities had a "twilight" theme...
another was the "anne of green gables" theme. my favorite book of all time and the best location of our favorite childhood family vacation. great memories of that trip...
and then there were those like the one at gardner village which were very darling, creative, and classy....
the shop in bountiful whose theme was "the wizard of oz" was fun too! i just loved their front entry display! how fun is that?!
and how absolutely darling is that?!
ok. ok. so it wasn't so bad. we had 2 full days of great conversation, tons of laughs, lots of tears, a few angry words, and my mom even busted out an action that i hadn't seen in forever. where you raise your hand in a open mouth like form and shut it. make sense? and yes. it was definitely a "shut it and end this conversation now!" i couldn't help but smirk just a tiny bit. basically those were 2 days that were well spent! especially now that we're all going down different paths. lyssa is in WA state, jenny is busy teaching school, were looking to move back east, marriage, and pregnancy is the "in" thing these days with all of the families. point is that were all creating our own little families and life choices. but yes. adventures like these make me miss the good old days when life was simple and all about fun. mom and dad were in charge and we made choices based on their control. once again "ignorance is bliss" but i'm thankful for where we are all headed!and for the record, even though we make fun of the adventures that my mom connives us to participate in, we all LOVE them to death! most of my favorite and best memories are when i've been right there with her! the year after my car accident, while we were living with my parents, we drove to every and any store in the state that carried the "Department 56 Halloween Houses". nooo lie. i decided that i wanted to collect them just like my mom does with their christmas house decor so we made a list and literally drove all over to make sure that we had EVERY piece that we POSSIBLY could!!! i know that we are such dorks but we had so much fun with this little project! not so "little" eh?! ;)
i LOVE you ladies, my BFS's, and LOVE you mom! i don't know what i'd do without any of you!
(and yes. i now wish i knew how to sew and was "that kind of mom", JUST like MY mom...)
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