Sister Retreat (with Mom)

Our first ever Sister Retreat was a great success!

It started off with just the 4 off us traveling over to the hotel (only 20 minutes away)

but when we saw Great Harvest, we had to stop for some bread!

Shaleen, Geralynn, Karie and Sally (mom)

After checking in at the hotel

(where we got 2 attached rooms, each with a kitchen),

we went to Mercier Orchards in north Georgia.

Sally, Karie and Shaleen shopping - I think we only ended up buying apples!

Lunch at Mercier Orchards

(obviously whoever forwarded these pics to me sent really crummy quality

but you get the idea)

On our way home from north Georgia

we stopped at a few quilt shops...

It was so fun to all be in  one car with nothing on our schedule,

just stopping whenever we wanted!

 Janalee joined us for dinner that night at Old Towne

and then we watched movies at the hotel!

Kelly joined us the next day at the temple!

Then we went out for a yummy lunch!

No schedule, no pressure, sheer pleasure!

Afterwards we went to Ger's house and quilted!

Ger's mother-in-law, Carolyn, came in for a visit!

On Wednesday we went to all 4 of our homes.

At Geralynn's house we cleaned out her garden boxes.

Janalee and Kelly

At my house we make butternut squash soup in our new electric pressure cooker

AND put back all the upstairs belongings (we had just gotten new carpet upstairs).

We were up and down those stairs SO many times!

Geralynn and mom were downstairs binding the quilts we made the day before!

Then we went to Janalee's house and organized for a few hours.

Ger and mom organized this sewing area!

At Kelly's house we learned all about the oils

Kara, Janalee, Kelly and Kirk

Mom was a bit exhausted but so very happy!

Shaleen was our enthusiastic oil expert!

Wendy came from South Carolina on Thursday morning and stayed until Saturday!
On Thursday Janalee did her school work ALL day long at the hotel!

We went to a few more fabric stores...

And we did some more quilting at Ger's house.

Friday we went to a restaurant wholesale store and another quilt store.

We went to Canton, Georgia to visit with a friend of Janalee's 

in a nursing home, Clara...

Janalee playing the piano at the nursing home!

Taking Clara to lunch at her favorite restaurant!

We went to a few open houses along the way to check on updated  house ideas

(since Wendy and Charlie are planning a move).

Kelly didn't join us on this day because Ryan (Kara's husband)

was graduating from Life Chiropractic that day!

 Wendy made us a delicious salmon dinner!

Saturday we did a family slide show -

that's right, the  old slides, one by one!

Here's some pics from the hotel...

Shaleen, Sally and Janalee with breakfast in hand.

Eating our breakfast...

Chatting and watching movies!

Did I mention that some of us stayed up until 2 in the morning talking?

 Displaying one of the quilts we made.

At the hotel lobby grabbing our breakfast!

We capped it off with General Women's Conference!

Jessa and Emma Wood joined us for this one.

 Another one of the quilts we made.

Afterwards we didn't want to part company,

so we had ice cream sundaes at Ger's house!

Let's do it again!

Thanks to mom for paying for everything!!!!!

Thanks to Shaleen for finding us a GREAT deal on a hotel and flying from Texas!