Today’s Fortune: Give a hug to someone who needs one more than you.

That is good advice. There is always someone in need of a hug.

Sunday, June 28th was our last day in Ashevegas. The time passed way too quickly. Mom got a good picture of me and all my friends before we checked out of the hotel room. I decided to wear my Ninja Pirate outfit. Dharma really likes that one.

After we got checked out of the hotel, we went to a place called World Cup Coffee Cafe.  They had really good coffee and desserts.  I shared a huge piece of tiramisu with Dharma.  It was the best I have ever had!

Mom and the other Tractor Girls had presents for each other.  Mom gave everyone a skein of her hand-dyed yarn, and some stitch markers she made from her hand-made beads.  Puggerhugger got a Nunderwoman doll from Lizabee!  We though it was absolutely the best doll we had ever seen!

Nunderwoman has several different “looks” depending on how you configure her outfit.  It’s a lot like the different looks I get when I wear a different hat with my karate suit or bowling shirt.

Jana also got a really great Wonderwoman project bag from Lizabee.  Lizabee made bags for everyone, and they were amazing.

The other side of Jana’s bag was really good, too!  It had a sock monkey nun!

Knittymac loves gnomes.  Gnomes are little funny-looking guys like the one on Travelocity where we book our airline tickets.   Mary Ann’s bag had a wonderful gnome on it.

There were lots of other bags, too.  And they were all filled with wonderful things.  Jana had crocheted flower pins and made specially fragranced hand balm for each of the tractor girls.  There was a “Livestrong” bracelet, stitch markers, a kinder egg toy, and a nun inside each bag.  And also a skein or two of wonderful yarn!  Lizabee and Puggerhugger did an amazing job on these bags.

This is what Mom’s looked like when we got home with it and we were actually able to take a really good picture of the bag and all of the stuff that was in it.  I think Mom’s bag was the best, because it had a great big sock monkey on it!!  Jana also gave Mom a book called  Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders. It is one of the few books Mom did not already have.

We got to have our very own table at the cafe, and I think we had a lot more fun than the Tractor Girls did.  We did not talk about yarn one single time.   Our friend PixieThief (Lindsay) showed up with Miss Mari Mwnci, and she also brought the card I sent to Dharma.  Dharma had apparently moved on to Lizabee’s house before the card got to Lindsay’s house.

Most of the monkeys got exchanged at the party, so they would not have to travel in those stuffy old Priority boxes.  Miss Mari went to Lizabee’s, Dharma went to Puggerhugger’s, and Sassy Le Pouf! went to PixieThief’s.  ValenTina is getting sent by mail.  We were the only ones who did not get another monkey, but Sister Mary Monkeypants is on the way to us from Wales, so we will wait.

When the party was over, I had to say goodbye to Dharma again.  It was a little bit easier this time, because I will get to see her again in October when we go to New England to meet another group of Ravelry friends.

We gave each other a big hug, and promised to write.

We had to come home without Sassy Le Pouf!, which was kind of sad, because I really enjoyed her visit.  When we got home, we went to Cuppies & Joe for dessert.   They had the Sass-a-Frass cupcakes that Sassy wanted last time.  I got one in her honor.  They even put it on a pink sparkaly Tiara sandwich glass plate.

It just wasn’t the same without her.  Sassy would have loved it.