The Girls’ Weekend Away
For over 30 years before the pandemic tried to squelch our happiness, I got together with my beloved sisters in Ontario, Canada.
We call it the ‘GWA’ or the ‘Girls’ Weekend Away’ and it always falls on the Victoria Long Weekend in May. I always flew home for a couple of weeks that month(which eventually stretched out to over a month!) and my sister,Pamela, and I would try and get away for a couple of days together at a B & B.
One year we drove through blizzard conditions(nothing could stop us from getting together!) to Bayfield, Ontario, and we had the surprise and GIANT laugh of our lives when our other two sisters surprised us by dressing up as sketchy maids who had come to ‘clean the toilets’. (see below)
Before you know it,our mum joined us and then our sister-in-law,Nancy, joined us too. I can honestly say it was the highlight of my year every year.
The ‘Drew’ girls all have birthdays on the cusp of May so we always chose one night to have a birthday party. The gifts were nice but often chosen to make each other laugh. One time we embarrassed our mum by making her wear a chicken hat at a restaurant and usually one family member was having a ‘big’ birthday so we could especially ‘center out’ that unfortunate ‘victim’. ha ha. ( See below what we did for the ‘baby’ of our family on her 40th).
As I mentioned we do anything to make each other laugh and I always said that we could never get sick because our joy would hold us for an entire year. We would always load up our van with our suitcases, presents, munchies(!), and ourselves of course, and drive out to a different location every time. One year we even went to Michigan in the States. We have had stoned hosts that we had to wake up to make the breakfasts. We found out our sister, Mary, is afraid of creepy old dolls(which a lot of the old Victorian Bed and Breakfasts seem to have upstairs near our rooms) so of course we started bringing ‘scary dolls’ to freak her out every year.
We had one host try and get our mum to go on a date with him out to the pub(!) and we always had tea. Lots of tea. (Amazingly, we don’t ever drink on the weekends..except perhaps a glass of wine at dinner). We painted together sometimes, played our guitars and sang,we almost always shopped ,went out for photography days, played board games, had good food at nearby restaurants, saw movies, plays, and generally have a lifetime of wonderful memories in only a few years.
Mary is SO great at being a good sport for my relentless photos. One year she gladly sported the fake piercings I brought and another year I showed the girls an ‘app’ that turned us into men. Omigosh! It was SO funny. See below for Pam’s image as a man…..
Today would have been the last day on our weekend away in other years. I’m obviously feeling nostalgic and not a little emotional knowing I am not able to be with my sisters for the second year in a row.
Once again good ole’ Zoom has come to the rescue and the sisters had our very first ‘face to face’ games night on Saturday past. It was SO great to see those beautiful faces and we did have sooooo many laughs as we played “Password” and reminisced about past GWAs. I know how blessed I am to have this wonderful family. I love them so much and miss our mum and Nancy(and of course our Dad, brother,John, and all of our Ontario friends and relatives.) and the ‘high’ I get from all the May love I receive from being near them.
Looking to next year with hope in my heart and thankful for all the memories….and Zoom!