Beading By The Bay 2013

I enjoyed myself at Beading by the Bay 2012 so much, I knew immediately that I was going to sign up again for 2013.  I managed to talk three good friends into going with me which made it even more special.


Dot. Sharon and Sue

 Sue and I had an adventure in even getting to San Francisco.  I was printing the boarding passes when I noticed that the date was changed.  TO THE DAY THAT I WAS PRINTING THEM!  Once I convinced Sue that I wasn't kidding and that we were flying out in 4 hours, we raced to the airport, got through security, and found our gate.  Whew, we made it!  Wait - flight is delayed.  Now we have time for dinner, but we might not make our connecting flight at Denver.  Snow storm coming so we decide to get out of Detroit and deal with Denver.  Once at Denver, we run like OJ Simpson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W1hnR3kLwo ) in an airport commericals to make our connecting flight.

You know when you are sitting on a plane and waiting and waiting and waiting and finally those last passengers get on the plane (and they are looking frazzled) - that was Sue and I.  We didn't even have seat assignments.  Sue was placed in row 1 while I ended up in row 176.  I don't think it was quite that bad, but it was at the back end of the plane.  Whew, we made it.... Even more amazing?

Our luggage made it.

Of course the next morning, we are up at the crack of dawn, because we are still on an east coast clock.  After double checking that we indeed were in California, with our luggage, we sighed a deep sigh and started vacation.

Later that day, Dot Lewellyn from Columbus, OH and Sharon Hessoun from Tuscon, AZ flew in and the group was complete.  We had a nice lunch and dinner in Burlingame, CA, lots of laughs and chuckles and then to sleep!

Off in the morning to wipe things off my bucket list and during our two days of touring, we saw so much:  San Francisco, Golden Gate bridge, Chinatown, Cable Cars, Sea Lions at Fisherman's Wharf, and more.  What a whirlwind of excitement

Following our days of being a tourist, we buckled down to our main objective - Beading by the Bay.  Marcia and Susan put on such a nice retreat.  We had three great instructors this year; Marcia (of course), Huib Petersen and Sabine Lippert with some beautiful classes.  It's just a chuckle-fest.  It was nice seeing faces of persons that I met last year and hopefully will again next year.