There's Something About Spring Crop-Day Four

We woke up on day four to frost on the ground. Stacey made sure to take photos of it, just in case that was the closest she'd get to snow. When we got to the Fire Annex, I was really glad that I had picked an easy breakfast for the first day. Stacey made coffee while I pulled together yogurt & granola parfaits with fresh fruit. Oh! I have failed to mention that the blackberries up here are close to heaven! They are so yummy and I had a big 'ole bowl of them. I have no idea if my friends are just nice or they really do enjoy the food I put together for them, but when they come up and tell me how good breakfast was and asked were I got the good yogurt from, I kind-of suspect they are just being nice. I mean...how hard is scooping stuff into bowls? But, I am glad they enjoyed it!
The croppers started to arrive and set up their spaces right away. Everyone was loving their tote bags I made/had made for them. Each tote was monogramed and had three frayed fabric flowers stitched on them. I explained about the door prizes and how our weekend games would work. My notion was that I wanted everyone to walk away from the crop with not only a door prize, but one that they wanted to win. I had such a fun time picking out the door prizes and I kind-of had people in mind when I was shopping. This was one of my favorite door prizes-"Girl's Night In". It had a romantic move, a bag of popcorn, Italian soda, tissues, chocolate and a mud facial. Too fun!

After "cooking" breakfast, starting lunch and organizing the kitchen my favorite two parts of hosting a crop was next-socializing and playing games! I walked around and got to see what everyone was working on, chatted with everyone and then pulled out this new game-Apples to Apples. THAT is one fun game! All I can say is that the Florida girls have requested that we play it at Whim So Doodle's crop coming up in about a week! We also played a round of Pictionary later in the afternoon that was a very popular choice. It doesn't happen too many times to get requests to play games over, but Dianne and Kim asked if we could play this one again! Ruth drawing "stomach". Yep! That's a stomach!

Lunch was also super easy since we had cooked the "butt" the day before and all I had to do was warm it in the crock pot. Thankfully the Fire Annex had a giant crock pot for it all to fit in. I had also made my mom's macaroni salad. It has some ingredients that are fairly odd to macaroni salad (Cheez Whiz, vinegar, flour, sugar...) but it is so yummy and I love to make it-reminds me of mom whenever I make it! When we were dishing up lunch Dianne poked her head into the kitchen to request a plate with no macaroni salad on it 'cause she wasn't a fan of pasta salads. I told her what any good lunch lady would-try everything once! I scooped a tiny bit on her plate, only to have her come back a few minutes later with a sheepish grin on her face asking for more! THAT is Lunch Lady heaven right there, folks!
We played more games and passed out prizes. I introduced everyone to the card make-n-take and told them it was a "self-guided" make-n-take. They all got to make 4 6x6 cards with fun patterned papers and QuicKutz embellishments. After awhile it was time to get gussied up for our dinner at Timeless Destinations. We all walked the couple of short blocks to the restaurant which is located on Main Street. This meant that it was a cute walk and with our cool evening air and flowering trees, it was a beautiful walk! Our long table was in a smaller dining room with beautiful log walls and unique hanging lamps. Our waitress was a doll and the food was fantastic. I had arranged a special menu for our group and there were a number of yummy choices. In fact, it was hard for most of us to pick one. It was great fun to sit around the table together and just chat and get to know everyone. Most of us had a cocktail and we ALL had dessert! Again there were some great options, and for once, I didn't pick the best one. The best one was the chocolate cake thing-ey. It was sin on a plate! Thankfully it was too much for one person to eat and I sat next to some generous ladies! Ooooh, but it was good!

Back to the crop room and back to work! Everybody was working on some great stuff. I brought my Project Life to do some journaling in, but I only got one card done. I love to talk too much! I got the game Encore going and this happens to be my all-time favorite board game. You get to SING! We were in two teams and I was the impartial judge. That was a tough job 'cause things started to get ugly! And I do mean ugly! lol Stacey reminded me that I have probally retired that game for a reason! Gave out more door prizes and had old fashioned candies and hot cheeze balls for a late night snack. We all stayed until about midnight with the promise to be back bright and early!