Eight of the Castoffs carpooled out to Francy’s house on Ashley Lake Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day, a little cooler than it has been. When my car got there, we noticed that the hood was open on Marylane’s van. Oh, no! What’s wrong? Well, it turned out to be nothing. Francy has a packrat problem, so she suggested that we all open our hoods to discourage the little varmints. Looked kind of funny…
Open wide.
We were shown to our rooms. Four of us slept in the apartment above Francy’s garage, two of us slept in the main house and two of us just came for the afternoon. We were so glad that Michele and Leslie joined us, even if it wasn’t for the night. When we got settled in, we met on the lower deck and ate a few appetizers, drank a little wine and knitted. Most of all we laughed. It was a lot of fun.
Wine and knitting outside – what could be better?
Michele had brought a dropped-stitch scarf to show us. Linda is using the same pattern on her own scarf, so it was fun for her to see the finished project. Michele knit it in a bamboo/wool yarn. Pretty!
Michele’s scarf.
Outside, Julie was knitting a sock for a friend and Michele started a new scarf.
Aah, happy knitters.
Surprisingly, most of us were knitting. Mary was knitting on Aurora’s scarf and Leslie was knitting a pair of legwarmers for Mira.
She’s very intent.
Little legwarmer.
Mary had brought a BIG bottle of Chocolate Wine. Yes, chocolate wine. We were apprehensive at first, but after just one taste, we were hooked. Mary had also brought a bowl of fresh Flathead cherries from her trees and Leslie had the brilliant idea of combining the cherries with the wine. GENIUS!!!! It was fabulous.
Chocolate wine…plus…
…cherries…equal…
…a taste sensation!
Party!
Here is the visual logo for our sleepover:
Mary thought this should replace the goat logo on the blog…
After a while, food seemed like a good idea, so Francy served us a light, delicious supper, and her husband, Harry, grilled flatbread to accompany the salad. Yum. I was too busy eating to get more than one photo.
I think she likes it…
After supper, it was time to SWIM! A few thought it wasn’t hot enough to get into the lake, but after the initial shock, it was great! We tried for some synchronized swimming:
Olympic material?
Maybe that was synchronized singing…
The intricate movements may have confused Marylane.
Michele and Marylane had fun.
Mary and Michele attempted a jump into the air from underwater.
I didn’t understand the plan.
Okay, here they go…
Well, not the highest leap…but she’s out of the water…on Mary’s head.
Francy enjoyed taking the photos, I think. Here are Joan and Leslie, who restrained themselves from jumping in.
Enjoying the show.
Bet she wishes she’d joined us…
After the swimming was over, we jumped into Francy’s hot tub. Ahhhh!
The mermaids.
AND THEN! We went for a boat ride on the beautiful lake at sunset. Thank you, Harry!
Harry is a brave man.
Julie in the boat.
The sunset was beautiful.
We went to bed fairly early – too much fun! We talked Harry into taking a group photo before we left the next morning.
Hey, hey, we’re the Castoffs!
OUR HERO!
We can’t thank Francy and Harry enough for the wonderful time we all had. Thank you, again for a GREAT TIME!
