Women urged to get away for a weekend

“It’s time for your initiation,” they said.
“They” were a mass of female relatives, veterans of Sisters’ Weekend.
They ushered 21-year-old Elizabeth Butterfield and her cousin to the second floor of a rented condo and told them to wait.
Though resigned to whatever silliness the aunts had concocted, the two didn’t expect to find grandma reclining in the empty hot tub, decked out in a ragged mink stole and cardboard Burger King crown.
But a little silliness with friends is just what every woman needs, Butterfield asserts in the recently published “Girlfriends’ Getaway.”
Butterfield is co-author with her mother, Kathleen Laing, of the 175-page guide “to the weekend adventure that turns friends into sisters and sisters into friends.”
Not only does the book encourage women to set aside time from their daily worries to just be girls again, it gives step-by-step directions on how to do it.
The authors, residents of Annandale, are perhaps the leading authority on such matters; they’ve been going away with their girlfriends on their annual Sisters’ Weekend for three generations.
“Everyone has pressures, but women seem to be the last ones to take time away from them,” said Laing, who moved to her home on Bass Lake from Chicago last year.
She and her husband, Craig, are originally from the Twin Cities. “They give their time to everyone else – families, communities, work – but they are the last ones to admit they need to get away.”
Women feel guilty
Usually it’s guilt that holds them back, she said. Women feel guilty leaving their children with someone else, or spending money that could be used for more necessary items. Men, on the other hand, don’t have a hard time taking a vacation. If they need a hunting weekend or a golf weekend, they take it, she said.
In their book, Laing and Butterfield encourage women to adopt that same attitude, just take it.
The entire theory of “Girlfriends’ Getaway” is based upon the success of the authors’ own Sisters’ Weekend.
The tradition began 14 years ago as the brainchild of Del Sporrong, Laing’s mother, also of Annandale. She wanted to go away and spend a few days alone with just her daughters.
“It was a huge deal for us,” Laing said. “We had one hotel room, two double beds and two rollaways all crowded together, but we felt like queens. We laughed and saw things in each other we hadn’t seen before. It was a celebration.”
The seven had so much fun they set a date for the next year, and the next after that, dubbing the tradition Sisters’ Weekend. Eventually they began inviting second then third generations of women, expanding beyond bloodlines to friends and distant relatives. Now there are 13 women between the ages of 18 and 82 who attend.
Despite some initial hesitation after the strange initiation, Butterfield became as dedicated to the tradition as her mother and grandmother. She had found something precious and resolved to share it with the world.
Now those offbeat activities she once categorized as weird appear as suggestions in the book.
There’s spa night, and reminiscing night and their favorite, hoity-toity night, which is a spoof on glamour night.
They make suggestions for finding the perfect place for a girlfriends’ getaway, how to save money for the adventure and even offer recipes for fast and fun foods.
They suggest games and devices to get the conversational ball rolling, since a big part of a girlfriends’ weekend is communication, and offer cute little extras like the initiation, or “girlfriends’ pledge”:
“Raise your right big toe, pat your head, rub your stomach and repeat after us,” it begins.
“The main idea is to let loose and have fun,” said Butterfield, who is also a wife and mother.
To promote that theory, Laing and Butterfield have designated September 20 as National Girlfriends Day.
It’s a unique chance for women to hang out with their friends, whether it’s over lunch or coffee, or at an old-fashioned sleep over.
“There’s power in numbers,” Laing said. “Only together was it possible for us to write this book. That’s why we encourage women to get together, to strengthen each other.”

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