JUST THE GALS Ellen Sauer, Jamie Breslow Rubin, Sara Steel, Nora Vickers McMordie, Katie Rafferty O’Brien, Laurie Nuss Hogan, Laurie Fenner Reese and Yvonne Stocker Rathgeb (from left) celebrate 50 on the Riviera Maya.
Hogan. They all graduated from Memorial High School but have known each other as early as elementary school at Hunters Creek – and most still live within 10 miles of those schools. Nora is a travel agent, and she’s been planning trips for decades – for herself, friends and clients. But it wasn’t until last year that she got the ball rolling on a getaway for her gal pals in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. “I feel like we do have to make an effort as we get older,” Nora said. “Although we live within 5 to 8 miles of each other it’s hard to go to 50 parties – I was thinking, let’s try to see if all eight of us can get together this one time – and it was seamless.” All would soon be turning 50, and were thinking about what they might do to celebrate. “We go every month to a Vietnamese restaurant, and it was there that I pitched the idea,” said Nora. “Four of us took out our checkbooks and wrote a check right then.” The trip took place eight months later, five glorious days and nights in October in Playa del Carmen. Nora rented “a really cool surfer-type beach house” with a pool, a private beach and a caretaker, a man who lives in the little house behind the big one. “It ended up being the perfect beach, not close to any town,” said Nora. “We drove into Puerto Morales one day, and Playa del Carmen another day – but we just stayed at the house for
the most part, and we ended up cooking, sleeping, drinking, talking.” For Yvonne, an interior designer who had never been to Mexico, the trip was a huge adventure. Even the simple things were interesting – like grocery shopping. “When do you really go grocery shopping with a friend? And to have seven of my closest friends in a grocery store in a foreign country – we didn’t know what we were doing, we couldn’t find things…. I just thought it was so fun.” It was the simple things that really made the trip – time to catch up with old friends, walk on the beach and collect shells, forget their cares. “We got to be together; we got to spend oneon-one time; we took a lot of pictures. There were nights where we played games and did tequila shots – I never did that before…. I laughed so hard my face hurt.” One thing that helped was that none of their cell phones worked in Mexico – so they were forced to disconnect. “This is a really good way to get away from everything,” said Nora. “They could reach us in an emergency, but we couldn’t be on the phone all the time – so it kind of makes Daddy step up, which I love.” “And it’s good for the kids, too,” added Yvonne. For Nora, it was fun to see the group she’d known since elementary school days “relax and
realize, ‘I can do this’… You think they’re going to die without you, and they don’t. You pick up right where you left off; it’s like, ‘Mom, where’s my lunch?’” The trip was such a success that they immediately began planning the next one. Nora’s already found the spot, a group of connected condos in the Cayman Islands, for this October’s trip. As Yvonne said, the concept of getaways with friends goes beyond having a good time. “For a healthy marriage you should make the time to hang out with friends and make time for each other. Just like spending time with your spouse helps to sustain a happy marriage, the same goes for making time with friends. “You have to nurture your friendships, and this made me realize, why didn’t we do this before?” she said. “Everyone needs to have a friend or two, and gosh, to have eight who would drop everything to be by your side and hold your hand at the doctor’s office or make you a meal – it’s really special.”
MORE ONLINE This year, Gail and Norman Stalarow rented a place in Colorado – and gave half the week to the women and half to the men. To see how it turned out, look for this story under Travel at thebuzzmagazines.com and read “Taking Turns with the Timeshare.” WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ APRIL 2015 25