After the brunch and gifting, we returned to the hotel and said goodbye to many of the dear ladies who returned home via plane or car.

Looking at the scrapbooks with Dody…

Headed for dinner in cold and drizzly weather…

Waiting for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  Little did we know what awaited us but a cacophany of charging elephants, screeching birds and bouncing baboons every 15 minutes! LOL  

When we left the mall after dinner, we approached the sliding doors that appeared to be locked. Dody asked a young girl next to her how to open them. She was told to pull them apart, forcing them open. Once again, Dody made that a grand moment! LOL  The girl said, "Wow, she's cool!"

The hotel shuttle came and rescued us from having to walk across the parking lot to the hotel in the windy, cold, rainy weather. These guys who drove us around were absolute gentlemen. They were always more than willing to drive us anywhere, well within a 5 mile radius I think is the hotel limit. Even with the weather getting colder, wetter, windier and more dangerous (we had a tornado watch that night) the driver was more than happy to drive some of the ladies to get a movie and odds and ends at various places.

Before the movie, I was calling home so my son could give me every single detail of his weekend. =)  He was so funny.  Each day he'd say, "Oh I can't wait until she gets surprised!!!!"  Then this night he enthusiastically asked, "So what happened?!"  I saved the details for when I came home; instead, he gave me the details of his weekend.  Then he'd stop and ask, "Mom, are you still there?"  "Yes, I am listening to every detail."  LOL 

Settling down to watch Elf. That was a funny movie, one of Dody’s favorites. Maybe it is her favorite. I had not seen it before and it was funny! Sadly, I started drifting at the end. I didn’t really sleep, but my eyes were getting heavy. Two nights of no sleep and my body was finally succombing to some zzzzzzzzzzz’s.

That night I had a new room to sleep in, since most of the ladies had gone. I had a great night's sleep, even though it was very late to bed and very early to rise, to see the next group of ladies off to the airport.

Finally, we were down to 5. Dallas would be expecting snow by evening. The temps were down in the lower 40’s. You could just feel the snow in the air. In the drizzly, windy cold I helped Corrine load up the car. Turning around I found our luggage cart headed out of the parking lot. Corrine was so exhausted from a cold and lack of sleep, but I could hear her laughter as I ran after that cart! Where were the cameras then?

Dody had been trying to pack. She wasn’t sure where she was going to put everything. She grabbed all of her socks, dumped them into the partially filled suitcase, and that was filled up! LOL She was talking about shopping for another suitcase.

Corrine and I hugged Kat, Dody and Melanie one last time and back to San Antonio we went!My family met me at Corrine’s house and we had a great reunion! My family was full of hundreds of questions, because I never went into great detail on the phone. So we drove to a Mexican restaurant and I told them every single thing that happened.

By this time, all of my fatigue came over me like a dark blanket. I was ready for bed. And how did kitty do? She spent the entire weekend, looking for me, meowing.  She can't hear anymore, so she never heard me come home.  And we don't see much of her any more, since she takes terrific deep slumbers during the day hidden under furniture.  Nothing wakes her up anymore.  After we had settled down for the movie, I had the soft chenille blanket covering me (her favorite, and yes she is picky, she'll look at me and meow until I get the right blanket on my lap and I stretch out).  She finally made her way down the stairs and saw me and...the blanket on my lap!  Guess where she hung out during the movie? 

And me...I didn't make it all the way through the movie. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz