Due to scheduling shifts and availability, we had our Girl Spa Week at one of the houses on the resort. Advantage, we’re all in one place. Disadvantage, distance from the shops, spa itself, etc. Pros and cons aside, we’re there to have fun!

I needed to pack for the week prior to Derby as the car would be loaded. The Amazing Kat hauled all my stuff from here, to her house, then hauled it all up to Nemacolin. My suitcase, the Fabulous Prizes, the Bag ‘0 Games, the bags of clothes purged from my closet through the year. Champagne. It’s a lot.

Good thing as we stuff my G-Wagon—that’s Laura, Jo, Kayla and me in the driver’s seat along with luggage, snacks, wine and all the things girls need for a week away from home.

A nice, clear day for the drive up, and traffic isn’t too bad. We check in at the welcome center, and the delightful Mason comes to meet us, leads us to our home for the week, and hauls the half ton of stuff inside. Sarah got there right before us, so her stuff’s hauled in, too.

Snacks in the pantry, fruit in a bowl, drinks and whatever in the fridge. Open some champagne because the fun begins now. I don’t have much to unpack until Kat and Griffin arrive, but I check out my room. I’m on the lower level this year, have a wood burning fireplace—woo!—and they’ve set up a DVD for me in the living/game area down there for my workouts.

Pat should be there, and when we check, she’s lost somewhere on the property. We send out our search party and guide her in.* Some hang out time, take dinner orders—by text for Nicole and Kat, who are on their way.

Then the gang’s all here, and we eat, drink and make merry. There’s a pool table downstairs, and Griffin’’s fascinated. Pat and I show him how to play. Not really as we suck at it, but he enjoys, a lot.

We might have hauled out the clothes—Sarah brought tubs of her own (from which I bagged a very cool black jean jacket)—my memory fails me on that order of things. But whenever we did it, lots of fun, and lots of new-to-whomever stuff. We are all girls who like clothes. **

Early-ish to bed as travel days are travel days.

I’m up early, and am checking my email in bed when I hear: Hi!

And Griffin’s standing with a big grin at the foot of my bed. Up and at ‘em. He works out with me for little while, then plays with the pool balls. He claims Number Ten cheats. He instructs me to draw the pool table on a big sheet of paper. I draw a rectangle because I also suck at drawing. Together we draw the balls where he designates, number them, then he makes a maze out of it, and we put both our names on the masterpiece.

I go up to make bacon. 

Kat’s made Bingo cards. Bingo begins at 8 a.m. Laura’s already up and out for her daily walk and an early treatment. Kayla’s out for a run. Jo and Sarah are at the dining table, and Jo’s hit Bingo. At about five minutes after 8. She takes this very seriously, though I’m told Sarah nixed her wondering if seeing a fly meant she could cross off See An Animal.

Big no.

Jo bags the first prize of the tournament.

Most of us decide it’s a good day to shop, so we do just that. Always fun to shop with girls.

It’s time for the games to begin. Kat’s made our scoreboard. First round of Scrabble. Laura, Pat, Kayla, Sarah. First round of Bowling. Laura takes Scrabble—big time—and Kayla does the same in Bowling.

We order ice cream.

Thursday cools off and brings some rain. The fireplaces come in handy. Griffin again joins my workout for a bit, then hangs out while I finish. He tries to teach me how to play a game on his IPad. I’m better off watching him play. Jo and Kayla are off for nails. I skip this as I just had mine done at Derby. And the afternoon is for painting. Always fun and challenging and fascinating to me to see everyone’s work. We’re all doing different things this time out, and with, imo, really impressive results.

Paint Day is also Pizza Night. Mason delivers! He’s also made sure we’ve had anything and everything we could want.

More Bowling, more Scrabble, and the first rounds of Just Dance. Kayla takes the Dance, Jo plays a seven-word at Scrabble. We play Monikers to much hilarity.

Another cool morning. Good thing I know how to build a fire. Pat has to leave us today. Nicole has to leave briefly—one son’s big lacrosse tournament, and her older son’s college graduation. She’ll be back Saturday night.

I have my Hot Stone Experience with the magical Autumn. It’s glorious. Kayla has her massage, and says the same. Her tech—new to her—is also Kayla. So she says it’ll be easy to remember and request her when we go as a family in August.

It’s the Bowling finals. Kayla and Laura are top scores. It’s nip and tuck, strikes, spares. Griffin invents a Strike Dance and gives high fives when the pins go down. He dances a lot as these ladies are hot! The scores are breathlessly close, the tension brutal!

In the end, Kayla nips Laura by two points. It may have been one. ***

It’s down to Kayla and Sarah in Just Dance. These are fierce competitors who routinely dominate the game. Who will get the coveted sticker and the fabulous prize? Once again, it’s neck-and-neck. And once again, Kayla nips Sarah by the thinnest margin.

Then because she’s a very good cousin, she does many dances for and with Griffin.

It remains cool on Saturday, and IIRC, a little drippy with it. Fires burning, and Sarah, Jo and I spend pretty much the entire day reading. I can’t remember the last time I spent the entire day in a book. Kat’s taken Griffin off for an adventure, and when they return, he has a Mother’s Day present for me. He’s made me a bottle of felt flowers, with buttons. It’s adorable. And as any mom or nana knows, there’s nothing like a home-made gift. It’ll go on my work station and make me smile every day.

He’s also decided I should have the gift he picked out for me. It’s nice to be known as it’s a three-wick candle in an oval wood bowl and covered with little crystals.

Kat, the Amazing Kat, made me a pillow for my new living room sofa. It’s gorgeous. She not only handmade it, but she SPUN THE WOOL! It’s so beautiful, so me, and will also make me smile every day!

It’s Laura Grills Night. I do my part by marinating the chicken. Veggies are scrubbed and prepped. It’s a beautiful presentation, along with Sarah’s and my request for burn-‘em-up dogs and toasted buns. It’s all seriously yummy. ****

Nicole returns. Her younger son’s team won their tournament, and her oldest had a happy graduation. And though we’d give her some recovery time, she’s ready for the Scrabble finals. *****

The sun comes back! It’s wonderful to go outside. Kayla, Laura, Sarah and Nicole go to tea in The Secret Room. I’m just too lazy for that. Kat and Griffin have another adventure. Jo and I have a Sloth Day. Everyone’s very happy with their choices. ******

She and Laura have unseated the Scrabble Queens, Kat and Jo. This is unprecedented. It’s the Underdog Story of the decade. Which of these upstarts will emerge victorious? They give each other no quarter as the lead shifts back and forth between them, with Jo carefully keeping score. After a long, hard-fought match, when the last tile is played, Laura claims victory.

She also claims she can bitch about games as much as she wants. *******

Jason FaceTimes to say Happy Mother’s Day. He asks if Kat and I got the flowers he sent. We have not. He checks, we check. Mason searches. Connor, the head butler for the estates, searches. And the flowers are discovered on the porch of an empty house. This mystery is solved when we learn they use that house’s address for the one we’re in.

The flowers are rescued, the lovely roses—thank you, Jason—freshened up. So pretty!

We decide on cards for the Wild Card match, and play Hearts for a prize. I don’t play, but keep score as six players makes it easier. It’s fun to watch these great, good friends get cutthroat over a card game. It’s a fairly close match until—and I saw this one coming—Sarah runs them. She was already at zero!

I will say Jo had bad luck, getting the Queen in the widow on the first hand.

I think winning this one might have taken some of the sting out of losing by a hare’s breath in Just Dance.

Last day, and the sun’s shining again. Walks, runs, workouts, books, treatments. And for me, packing. Kat’s going to haul most of my stuff back again, bless her heart. Still, we eat, drink and make merry. And have our Crowning Ceremony. The scoreboard shows Kayla has dominated. While everyone takes home prizes, she is the undisputed queen of Girl Spa.

When Sarah, our queen and Griffin have retired, the rest of us sit around. I comment how everyone always has their phone, and why is that. Discussion. My phone’s been down on the charger all week. And when I’m espousing the benefits of disconnecting, Nicole’s phone signals. It’s Sarah. And when I say Sarah’s just downstairs, why didn’t she just come up? Nicole says: Sarah saw a mouse!

We went through this on a much more intense basis the last time we stayed in this house. I blogged about it at the time. Nicole rushes into the kitchen for a bowl—with which we would capture the mouse as before—and we all go downstairs.

We hunt. It’s a large area, lots of rooms. Kat using the flashlight on her phone to look under Kayla’s bed. After a thorough search, we find no mouse, and conclude it’s gone into the (locked) utility room, and deduce we disturbed it that day because several of us did laundry.

Mason arranges for Heart Traps as don’t want  to kill the mouse.

I discover the heat’s suddenly not working in my room. It’s 66 degrees. I build a big fire. And build in up in the morning when I wake up to 64 degrees. Brr! It’s raining, and pretty hard on Departure Day.

Sarah leaves early—hugs!—she had work waiting. The rest of us take more time, and Mason—what a guy—loads everything up. Nicole’s next, more hugs. Sarah texts to let us know the rain’s bad and so’s the traffic.

Oh well.

My group gears up. Hugs for Kat and Griffin (it’s his last Girl Spa), and we head out.

Yes, the rain’s bad, and so’s the traffic. The first 90 minutes of the drive is anything but pleasant. Finally, on the last leg, the skies clear. Ahhhh. And home again to insanely happy dogs, BW who hauls luggage to various cars.

Many hugs after a really wonderful week. Can’t wait to do it all again.

Nora

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Note from Laura: Did you think I wouldn’t stick my nose in on this???

* I call Pat on her phone, Kayla was sitting next to me. Pat’s dealing with a lovely illustrated map from the hotel that doesn’t quite list all the roads from the welcome center to the house. I try to send her a google link to direct her. She tells me she’s going to park and let us find her.
Now, I’d sipped some champagne so Kayla offers to drive. Pat’s five minutes away from the house, but it felt like years after all the circles she made. She has champagne.

**We do the clothing exchange on the first night.

***It was one point in the semi-final, two in the final. And someone’s Nana was calling it for me since I had a couple strikes in the final frame. The shock in Nana’s voice that I might win was apparent until the final score showed up and Kayla won.

****In 2021, I missed cooking for big groups since we were all still living separate lives. The gang said it was one of their favorite meals of the trip and loved the idea of doing it again. Made me so happy to grill veg, chicken and hot dogs — something for everyone. And Nicole made it back in time for dinner!

*****Not quite, we wait until the next evening.

******Actually, Nora and JoAnne go with Kat and Griffin to the first arts & crafts and make candles. THEN they head back to the house and hang on the deck in the lovely Mother’s Day sunshine.

*******You bet I will! And a PS: give Nicole a follow on Instagram. She’s so very entertaining.

Laura