Girlfriend Getaways

     ... are the best! There's something about spending extended time with good friends that is simply good for a woman's soul. Of course, it helps if you have exceptional friends like I do!
     I just recently returned from a midweek mini-vacation spent with "the Game Girls," a group of women I've been hanging out with for many years. Once a month we get together for lunch at someone's house and then spend the afternoon playing games. This can range from card games to word games, the two newest favorites being Farkle and a card game called Golf Ten.
     We soon realized that we needed to enjoy more of a good thing and so started doing a yearly weekend getaway in April, which we dubbed "Enchanted April," naming it after that classic chick flick with Josie Lawrence and Joan Plowright. We've been doing this for about ten years now and we've been to a lot of wonderful places: Whidbey Island, Portland Oregon, and Granville Island in Vancouver, to name a few. We even took a weekend cruise from Seattle to Victoria one year. This year we were on the Oregon Coast. For the most part the weather cooperated, but even if it hadn't we'd have had a great time. (You don't need good weather to stay up until two in the morning laughing and playing games.)
     We have several gourmet cooks in our group so the food was spectacular. And the treats were, too. Trader Joe's dark chocolate caramels - oh, chocolate heaven.
     But really, the best part of the trip was being able to share our joys and troubles, to be able to be ourselves and know that whether we were at our best or worst we were still loved. Because we've long since gone from friendship to sisterhood.
     How about you? Do you have a special group of friends you hang out with? I hope so, because I'm convinced that friends are one of God's greatest blessings.