When I got to Raleigh, Nola was waiting for me and swept me off for a fun long weekend. She took me to Archivers which is a very nice scrapbook store. We also went to a really great pizza place, The Mellow Mushroom. All the workers were dressed up. It is sort of close to the college campus so there were lots of fun people there dressed up too. The best was the Mutant Ninja Turtles (turtle shells make out of baking pans). We had the best pizza I've ever had. It was the freshie pizza with fresh tomatoes and cheese.
The Mellow Mushroom
Friday, I slept in like a lazy bum. Nola had to work 1/2 day. After she was done, we got our stuff together and headed for the beach. It is about a 2 hours drive to Carolina Beach. We stay at a really nice Courtyard Marriott that is right on the beach. Each room has a balcony that faces the ocean. Mom and Marsha came to meet us for the weekend as well. We were very lucky and had adjoining rooms which was very nice. Nola and I scrapbooked Friday night with the group.
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| The view from our balcony looking up the beach and over the hotel pool. |
The group is a large group of women from the Raleigh area. There were 48 of us there this time. We were very lucky that the hotel gave the group and extra conference room so we had lots of space. It is fun because I've gone out enough that I have met several of the ladies and they remembered me. Nola is highly respected in the scrapbook world and is very well liked. The lady that organized the retreat has just the right level of neurosis to plan and organize the whole event like a pro. I really appreciated that.
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| Looking across the scrap retreat room |
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| Our selfie in our spot at the retreat |
We requested a table closer to the door this time. We were sat at a table of 8 women. Across the table was Yvonne and Carol. These women are every bit hillbilly southern you can imagine. They had the drawl and the speech patterns that made them so genuine. They were the most fun and had us giggling much of the time. They were highly religious but not in a "Utah Religion" sort of way. I had to really watch my swearing. I wish I could remember all their funny sayings. But I was in 7th heaven with the southern culture and flare. I was very happy with our table partners. The other end of the table....well they might as well have not been there. We really didn't interact. In fact, Nola sat by a woman that historically wasn't very friendly. So we just had our party on our end of the table.
We went to lunch and dinner with Mom and Marsha on Saturday between scrapbooking. We ate lunch at the bistro at the hotel. But dinner, we used Yelp to find a fun restaurant in the area. We went to the Surf House. It was described as a local fresh sourced restaurant decorated in early Salvation Army. When we got there, we were so surprised and though it was nicely decorated and very beachy. The smells coming from the kitchen were unbelievably delicious. Since I don't eat much seafood besides shrimp, I decided to try the shrimp and grits. I was a little nervous as I am not a big grits person but this was absolutely delicious. The flavors were fantastic and pretty complex. It included 2 pieces of "sopping bread" for me to get each and every last succulent bite. It was certainly a highlight of the foodie journey.
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| My shrimp and grits with sopping bread. I can't tell you how delicious this was. |
After dinner, we went back to scrapbook. We know from experience, Sunday is hectic so my goal was to get all my pages done Saturday. I was working like a frantic woman cutting and gluing and planning and creating. At 11:30 pm, I was happy to stack up my pages and announce they were mostly done except titles and journaling. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment. I had a ton of pages to do this year and had both cruises to scrapbook which is a huge task.
Sunday we had brunch in the hotel bistro. We also had to check out at 11:00 so we packed up our stuff out of the room. But then we went down to the scrap room. Nola was so nice and helped me cut titles for my pages on the Cricut. I think she knows I get pretty frustrated with the Cricut and did a great job cutting for me. After that, we packed up and bid everyone farewell. We loaded up the car and decided to go for a short walk down the boardwalk. We had fun talking and taking photos. We laughed and spent time catching up. Then we loaded in the car and made the long drive back to Raleigh.
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| Check out this sky! |
Beach traffic is heavier than you can imagine. Slow and steady wins the race. Part way through the drive, Nola wanted to stop for gas. We got off on the next exit that advertised a gas station. I believe the town was call Faison. We had to drive 3 miles off the freeway. It was like turning back time to the time of Andy Griffin. It was the cutest little town. I saw my first cotton field up close. Nola picked a branch for me to bring home which was fun. They also had a huge strawberry processing plant. We thought it was funny that there was a town that appeared to be built around the strawberry plant. We guessed it smells wonderful during strawberry season. We both agreed that was a fun stop and we were glad we were taken off the beaten path.
Nola dropped me off at the airport with time to spare which was good because security was busy. I had a 6:30 flight home with a layover in Atlanta. I got home at 1:00 am. It felt like the longest flight ever. But it was well worth it to get to spend a weekend with Nola. We had so much fun. I always hate coming home and feel sad to be back home and so far away from Nola. Insult to injury is that it snowed the next day. I can't wait until next November so we can go to the retreat again!
Thanks Nola! I had the best time!
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