Crop Fest in Garmisch

The gals, Beth, Kim, Jacquie, Karen and Irene.

Last weekend I met up with some friends in the lovely ski village of Garmisch. John was sweet enough to offer to watch the kidlets single handedly. Brave soul that he is. Don't worry family and friends he will be getting his long weekends as well. He is planning on going for a golf week in Garmisch this spring and a possible boy's ski weekend as well. All is fair and I certainly don't mind.

Okay, so Rome wasn't built and neither were my Rome pages.

On Thursday the 18th I packed all of my scrap booking paraphernalia and I mean all....... with plans of skiing in the afternoon and on Friday morning. The scrap fest was starting at 3:00 on Friday and ended Sunday at 12:00. With the van weighed down and I mean weighed down I headed to Garmisch, normally a 2 1/2 hour drive. The forecast for the afternoon was heavy winds of approximately 50-80 miles per hour. Not to worry it was the am, so I was sure to avoid the strong winds, not! After 45 minutes of driving I encountered a stau (traffic) and sat for almost an hour. I was okay with that because I was enjoying the peace and quiet in the car, remember, no kinder:) Once I was out of the traffic jam is when things really got hectic. The winds were horrible, talk about white knuckle driving. It was one of the worst driving experiences ever. I was fighting to keep the van on the road and worried as well about other drivers, especially trucks. The traffic jam earlier was caused by 2 overturned tractor trailers. I refused to take a hand off the steering wheel. I listened to the same CD for almost 3 hours and didn't even take a sip of water. The only time I did take my hand off the steering wheel was to wipe my sweat drenched palm so the wheel wouldn't slip out of my hand. Traffic was moving at about 100 km because of the winds. That is unheard of for German drivers. I think all the scrap booking materials helped weigh the car down:) Once I entered Austria the winds calmed down. Almost 5 hours later and stressed from the drive I gratefully arrived safe and sound at the beautiful Edelweiss Hotel in Garmisch. Just to tell you how bad the winds were, the whole village of Garmish shut down early. All shops and most restaurants closed at 3:00, the train shut down and obviously the Zugspitze shut down for skiing.

Irene and Kim, selecting papers.

In the evening I enjoyed just having time to myself. I organized photos, enjoyed a massage, had a relaxing grilled salmon dinner at Pullman's inside the hotel, sudokued, and watched a movie. It was really nice. On Friday my friends were coming to Garmisch and we would start scrap booking. Friday the Zugspitze was still closed for skiing, but the stores were open so I shopped and enjoyed the views. I had a really enjoyable lunch at our favorite restaurant (John and I), La Toscana. The restaurant owner had her 4 year old there and it really made me miss the kids, I kept seeing babies the night before and really missed the Zander man. The restaurant owner and I had a nice chat. The owner is just so sweet she was really easy to talk to and I told her that their family restaurant had the best Italian food I have ever had, even in Italy. She thanked me and told me others had told her the same, but funny enough they were Turkish, she said go figure. She also said her husband studied Italian cooking for years.

Beth, hard at work.

Kim, Irene, Karen and Beth arrived safely in the afternoon and we started scrap booking. I started on the pictures of Rome, which I was hoping only to do 4 pages, but ended up with 8. It was so hard to narrow down the pictures of such an historic city. We worked diligently until about 12:30 (Kim stepped out to go to the room to work on her Yoga moves, he, heee), inside joke, we laughed so much my stomach hurt. Laughter is truly contagious

Irene pregnant and glowing.





Karen hard at work.

Saturday we had breakfast and started work around 10:00, we left in the afternoon to venture once again to La Toscana, the gals wanted to give it a try and I didn't mind. La Toscana has such wonderful food, atmosphere and a really friendly family owns it. We had a relaxing lunch of caprisi salad, pizza and wine. After lunch it was back to scrap booking. It was so... nice to get so many pages turned out. The five of us really enjoyed working together and we really helped each other with ideas when we were stuck. We were also able to share each other products and tools which was a terrific help. In the afternoon we had a massage therapist come to the conference room and we each received a 10 minute back massage. I know what your thinking, but hey that scrap booking is hard work. Seriously it does work havoc on your back constantly hunched over. Later we begrudgingly left for dinner, we didn't want to stop and the ideas were flowing out of all of us and the time was flying by. Once we were eating we were glad to stop and enjoy some great conversation and bonding. Later we continued on and went to bed around 2:00, we didn't want to stop, but we knew we had to sleep. We had families to get back to, husbands who hadn't slept due to fussy children and coming home sleep deprived would not fly.

The girls and the Alps.

Sunday morning we got a few more pages completed, laughed some more and went shopping at the local PX. Around 2:00 we were on the road headed for home. Beth has been named "Miss Super Scraper" with 28 completed pages. The rest of us had about 16 a piece. Why do we do this you ask, well if your a scrap booker your not asking, if you aren't, well we do it for our families and for the memories. The pages look great and you can see all the love and work put into each page. I'll tell you this, God forbid we ever had a fire, but the family would obviously go first, once they were safe the scrapbooks would be next and that would be all, everything else can be replaced. Coming from a family with a lot of firefighters, I know when they read that last sentence they are shaking their heads about the scrap books. When I came home John saw the pages and said, maybe we should get a fire proof safe. Funny enough Irene said the same thing at the scrap booking fest.

Over 20 hours of scrap booking.

I drove home with Karen and really enjoyed getting to know her better, we never stopped talking. It made for a short drive. We caravaned with Beth, Kim and Irene and got home safely. Once home it was so great to see John and the kids. I just sat on the couch and held Zander and played with Anika and Lexi sat next to me. The great thing about going away and getting your batteries recharged is that you come home ready to go and in great appreciation of my family (not that I don't feel darn lucky as it is). It was funny, because I was showing John and Lexi the pages I turned out and Anika was in her high chair eating and couldn't see. I didn't think she would be interested. She started screaming at the top of her lungs and then I realized she wanted to look too. So I turned her around and that was the solution. She started pointing at pictures and saying, "Baby, baby". It was so darn cute. I was glad to be home.

Beth, Irene and Kim displaying their hard work.

I was also glad to be fortunate enough to have such a relaxing weekend with the girls, laughing, being productive and having such a great time. We definitely got to know each other better, bond and share so many ideas and memories. Thanks to Beth, Karen, Kim and Irene for such an enjoyable weekend. I hope we can do it again before PCS season arrives for all of us.

Beautiful Garmisch Alps.