W3 Book Club Staycation

by Teri E. Popp, Tastemaker in Residence

Woo hoo!  There's nothing like spending the weekend with a great group of girlfriends!  And what better excuse than the 100th book read by our fantastic book club.  After all, our group's name is W3 Book Club, standing for Wine, Women and Words. Go here for the background of W3 Book Club.

We booked our entire group for a 2 night stay at the Radisson Blu located at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.  This particular location offered us anything we'd want to do in the line of eating, drinking, sleeping and, of course, shopping.  

To ensure things stayed on track with our tight time schedule (ever heard the phrase "like herding cats"), and to offer fun activities associated not only with our specific book chosen for April 2016, which was "The Dovekeepers" by Alice Hoffman, we put together a spreadsheet of activities.  We highly suggest this method if you're thinking of recreating a fast paced weekend with a large group.

We kicked off the event with an introductory cocktail party themed to two of the one hundred books we had read at previous book club gatherings:  "The Street of a Thousand Blossoms" by Gail Tsukiyama, and "Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea" by Chelsea Handler.  Okay, we never said we only read great literature in our group; although, to be fair, we do read a fair amount of the classics and great, new contemporary reads for the most part.  And these two books offered the options of both sushi and cocktails!

Over the course of the weekend, we attended The Comedy Club, ate at restaurants themed to our various previously read books, and took a painting class that focused on our current read of "The Dovekeepers."