Last Fall, six of my sisters and I, and some of our girls congregated in Arizona for a Hen Party! For something that did not have a lot of pre-planning, a lot of stars aligned to make it happen!
I was scheduled to teach a class at the Lake Powell Quilt Retreat in Page, Arizona, and my sister and daughter came with me.
We left early on a Thursday morning and stopped to check out Lake Powell before the class. My sis told me that the waterline in a normal year is about halfway up the rock! It is about 35 feet low this year! A sobering thought - hopefully it will be a good winter and we will see the water levels rise. The girls explored the area while I taught my class that afternoon.
I had been scheduled to teach a second class Friday evening, but there were not enough sign-ups and the class was canceled. That turned out to be fortuitous!
One of my sisters who lives in Idaho, had been wanting to go to Phoenix to visit our sister there, as a birthday present for herself. She had planned it for the same weekend as the quilt retreat in Page. Then, about a week before, we learned that the rest of my sisters also decided to head to Phoenix and join her! Four of them live in Idaho near where we were raised, and three of us are in Utah. It was shaping up to be a fun Hen Party weekend! Our annual Hen Party began about 29 years ago, when my nephew was born in Arizona. All of us sisters took a trek to visit her, and our Grandpa called it a "Hen Party". It turned into an annual event, going to different places to spend time together without husbands or kids, and just cackle together for a few days.
Page is about six hours from Phoenix, so we decided to head south as early as possible the next morning. We took the scenic drive through Sedona, which was only a little bit out of the way, but worth the time to drive down the canyon through this artsy, little town. It was beautiful! We all agreed, we need to make Sedona a destination some time soon.
We arrived in Phoenix with enough time to stop at the SAS fabric store before meeting up with everyone, and loaded up on minky fabric priced at $5 per pound! It came to about $5 or $6 per yard (it's normally $14 to $19!) - such a bargain!
It turned out that one of our sisters did not make it; her father-in-law had just passed away, and there was a funeral to plan. She met one of the girls coming from Idaho to send us some "Shine, Girl!" t-shirts she'd had made the day before, and wrote a sweet note to each of us! So cute! We had a yummy lunch of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches made with our brother-in-law's homemade sourdough bread. Oh. My. Goodness!! Sooooo good!
Then we headed to attend an Open House at the Mesa temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was beautiful!
We walked over to the nearby Visitor's Center, where we could look up some of our relatives in the family history section and read some of their stories. Afterward, we ordered scoops of ice cream at the BYU Creamery next door! Mmmmm! Great on an Arizona day!
That evening, the gang of us went to an entertaining evening at Medieval Times for somesword fighting, jousting, and beautiful horsemanship, along with a feast you eat with your hands! We really enjoyed it!
The following day, we again made a trek to the SAS fabric store for round II! I discovered that my friend, Lisa lived only about 10 blocks away, and she drove over to meet us for a few minutes and give a hug! Such a treat for me to see her!
Afterward, we dashed back to my niece's home, where we met up with my grandmother's "little sister", "Aunt Lolly" as we sometimes call her. Aunt Laurene is 96-1/2 years young, and such a darling! She is the happiest gal, and always has been the sweetest thing! She obtained two Master's Degrees in her 90s!! An amazing woman. So glad we got to visit with her and get her talking about how she met her husband during the war. He was a POW in France.
We had a great Taco Bar at my niece's house, then went out on their motorboat in their backyard lake! More fun times!
That evening, we did a little shopping; we were going to Aunt Lolly's granddaughters' Shine Girl, Shine annual dance party!! Amazing that it was scheduled for the same weekend we were all there! Yay! We gussied up - put on sparkly shirts, everyone did their hair and put on fancy makeup and accessories, then we headed to this fun dance party gathering!
We stopped at the Sparkle Bar to add glitz and glimmer to our hair, body, faces, got some photos, ate some snacks, then the music started in and we danced together for an hour! Here's a sample of us DANCING! - I see a bunch of my sisters and nieces in the video ... Oh, my achin' bones! But, boy was it exhilarating!
We tried to learn a flash dance routine that afternoon, watching this video tutorial ← then tried to do the dance when they played the music... we were hilarious! Oh, my, it was so much fun! Here is a snapshot of me and my sisters in this GIF←, and a photo of the bunch of us here ↓↓.
Yep, we are SHINY! Oh, it was delightful! We got some good sleep, had some breakfast, picked some lemons and grapefruit from Annette's trees, then hopped back in the car and headed home! Such a wonderful weekend!
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