Safe and Sound

I have been home for a few hours now and I am finally getting to the computer. I loaded up a big slide show of photo from this weekend's trip. Check them out!!

Cindy, Chrissie and I had a blast. I arrived Friday evening and I have to laugh cause, the first things the girls said when I came in the door was "OMG, She's TALL!" Yep, for all those out there picture in my a shorter 5ft 2-4ish... I am actually 5' 9". LOL! We went a great restaurant called "Mike's" where I had my first ever crab cake. Another shocker for my girls in Virginia, this northern hick had never had a crab cake. I was pleasantly surprised by how good they were. Next time you are in DC are and can get to Mike's, have a crab cake.

We stayed up late on Friday night, chit chatting away like we've know each other for years. I love those kinds of chats!! I don't get them much up here, cause frankly stay at home Mom's don't get to go on sleep over parties like we used to, lol. Even though we were all up until after 1:00am, we were out to our torches by 9am for our day of beads. Thanks to Cindy's husband Randy for a great batch of pancakes with St Patty's Day sprinkles!! They gave us the energy to torch until around 5pm. (with a little lunch break too)

Technically, this was my first ever lampworking class. It was great having to flexible students. They were more then willing to go with the flow. We ended up working the lessons with me showing a few techniques and beads then the girls would try it. I showed them the way I pull stringers and twisties, how I make me beads oh-so-very round, I made them a mod dot, a plaid, a heart, an "iced" cube, some frit beads... we made lots of beads!! You can see how many in the photos above. I hope the girls got all they wanted out of my visit. They were making great rounds by the time I left :)

After torching for a while we worked on photography. Wait until you see Cindy's website in a few weeks. Her jewelry is gorgeous and she has an awesome style. You'll love it. And Cindy & I are going to keep pushing Chrissie to get a website too, cause her stuff is just as great. One of these days I will post a photo tutorial for you all here, but give me a bit. By the end of the day we were famished and headed out for some Tex-Mex at Austin Grill, yummy. But my favorite part was when we got back. I made the girls one of Ron's famous hot fudge sundae cakes... it is just to die for. It's ooowy-gooy-good. Sitting over big bowls cake with vanilla ice crea, we started chatting away the night again. We made plans to wake bright and early again to make some more beads before my Sunday flight home.

I gotta tell you how sweet the girls were... they made me cry when it was time to go home. They surprised me with a wonderful tote monogrammed with my "Kab's" logo. Inside was lots of goodies, post cards from VA, gifts for my kids, a subscription to Adorn magazine, a Presidential coffee mug, frit and more. It was so thoughtful of them!!

I hope we turn this into an annual bead retreat. I am sure these gals will have something to teach me by this time next year :)