Scrapbook Retreat

I went on a scrapbooking retreat this weekend to Springmaid Mountain in North Carolina. We went with the ScrapHappy store in Greer. We left Friday morning (I took a personal day off from school.) and came home this evening around dinner time. I worked on our beach pictures. Because this was Gavin's first year at the beach, I took a MILLION pictures; so instead of putting those pictures in my regular 2008 album, I made a seperate 8x8 album just of our vacation. I got all 23 2-page layouts completed and put in the album! That's a big deal to me, because I'm slow as Christmas when I'm working on a page. Anyway... My sister Kelli and I were in charge of cooking for 50 women. This was the first time I've ever cooked or been in a commercial kitchen. It was pretty fun. I really liked the gas stove. The pots got hot really fast. Our menu for the weekend - Friday night: hamburgers with fixings, homemade potato salad, chips Saturday morning: sausage biscuits, grits, eggs Saturday lunch: homemade pimiento cheese, homemade chicken salad, veggies & dip, chips Saturday dinner: grilled chicken salad with fixings, more potato salad (by request), apple slices with fruit dip Sunday morning: grits, breakfast casserole Sunday lunch: turkey/ham sandwiches with fixings, pasta salad Sunday dinner: layered cheesy spaghetti (with corkscrew noodles instead of regular noodles), apple walnut salad with raspberry vinegarette, cheesy garlic bread Monday morning: grits, mixed fruit, toast with jelly Cooking for 50 women was fun, but hard. Do you know how hard it is to please 50 WOMEN??? I have never met so many picky people in my life! Let me just tell you a couple of things that some women said that just ticked me off:

• We made a grilled chicken salad one night for dinner. We used mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow & red bell peppers, and other yummy toppings. We went ahead and made the plates for them because we learned the night before that some people don't understand how to be considerate and save enough food for others. We also thought that if we made the plates for them that it would move the line through the kitchen faster. Well, there were several women who said things like, "Can you redo my salad and pick out the tomatoes", or cucumbers, or something else. I understand that not everyone loves all those veggies, but couldn't they have just scooched what they didn't like to the side of the plate, instead of complaining?
• The ladies were encouraged to bring snacks and sweets to share with the whole group. One lady made a peach cobbler and an apple crisp. We decided to pull those 2 desserts out and have them after lunch one day. Also, we put out a dish of brownies, and also a dish of homemade cookies. So - we had more than plenty for dessert. After we ate, this one lady came up and was mad because the peach cobbler was gone before she could get any. Poor thing.

This was just 2 things - and even though they don't seem so bad reading about them here on my blog, when they actually happend, and with the sarcastic, hateful tone of voice that was used - it made my blood BOIL! Where are people's manners? I wanted so badly to tell some of the women that if they didn't like what we were cooking, they could drive 5 minutes down the road to Burger King or Bojangles and get something different; and I wanted to tell the people who were so picky about what they ate, that they should have brought their own dag-gum food!

But it was fun.

Here we are doing our thing:

They had a beautiful Fall display.

This was just a really cool layout that a lady did.

On another note...

Jason kept Gavin while I was away this weekend. He is a great dad, but 2 things happened that made me want to come home early.

1. On Friday, Gavin was pushing his toy vacuum cleaner and pushed it faster than his little feet could keep up. He fell forward and busted his lip. Jason said the blood ruined his tshirt.
2. On Saturday, Jason and his mom took Gavin and visited his brother Tim. While there, Gavin fell on the bottom step on its corner and busted his forehead. Jason said it swelled up real bad almost immediately and the swelling took up half of his forehead. They took him to the emergency room just to make sure everything was ok - which it was. I wanted to rush home right away to hold my baby.

Gavin is totally all boy and he's covered with bruises from head to toe. I know this won't be the only time he gets hurt, but this was just a really bad time to get hurt - while I was away. It made me worry.

Well that was my weekend. I hope yours was interesting too.