Girls Girls Girls

A few weeks ago, after much planning and deliberation, "The Girls" took of for a much-needed weekend of fun in the sun in fantabulous Destin, FL. Friday was travel day, we all met up at the hotel after dinner and headed out (in a taxicab, natch - responsibility first!). We had a great (short) night of drinking and dancing it up, laughing and talking. You know you're getting old when you hit the sack before 2 am on a GNO! Of course, that doesn't include the additional 2 hours of hard-to-remember conversation and laughter...I remember the laughing, just not the why...

Here is the whole motley crew, about 2 drinks in at The Village Door, a cool little bar with good music and a friendly bartender, whose name escapes me at the moment...but he did snap a nice little photo for us!

My girls, left to right: Tonya, Julie (in back), Stacie, Jessica, Marion and troublemaker-in-charge, ME, up front and rockin the hot pink! (Pink was a trend for me that weekend, not sure exactly why yet) I'm also bent at the knees at a crazy angle - I'm a good 2-4 inches taller than any of these girls, barefoot, AND I was wearing big old espadrille wedges to boot. Poor short friends o'mine! Stacie is not bent at the knees, just for some perspective :)

Before the sweating and drunkiness ensued, I snapped a few quick shots - this is Julie and I posing pretty - she hates pictures!

Tonya, Julie and I, post lemon drop shot #647...of course not really, but you can see there is (liquor-induced) happiness all around! And pink cheeks!!

Sorry about the gratuitious shot of Julie's girls. Sometimes they have a mind of their own.

This shall be henceforth known as "the point of no return". So funny. Tonya gave herself bunny...forehead?? And if that isn't t-rex arm on my part...well, I don't believe I will have ever seen it's equal. We were feeling it, to say the least. There are many fuzzy details of the night thereafter, but the important elements are fixed in my memory: we were TOGETHER and we had F-U-N!!!

This is the deliciousness that greeted us the next morning, after an early breakfast, much-needed coffee and a couldn't-have-made-it-without it "hair of the dog".

This, my friends, is the Emerald Coast of Florida. With any luck, any luck at all, the oil spill of catastrophic proportion won't ruin it for the next 5 generations. Cross your fingers.

I do feel very fortunate to have had some time to spend on this glorious stretch of coastline before it gets ruined with ugly sticky tar balls and nastiness. I hate that the thought even has to occur to me, but I couldn't help but drink it all in while I sat on the beach with the best of friends...it may never look like this again. But I digress...

I do that a lot. Bound to happen again, my friends, forgive me.

A few hours later, a few beers for some (who me? noooooooo), some much needed sunshine and it was time for lunch!! We cleaned up, hopped in the car and went to grab some yummy local seafood on the beach!! No we did not plan our ridiculously matchy-matchy outfits. Hard to believe, but true nonetheless. Sometimes we are just dorks.

Shocker of all shockers, we all ordered grouper sandwiches - fried, fried, fried - just what the old girls needed to feel 100% for some shopping! After lunch, we headed over to the Silver Sands outlets and shopped the afternoon away - unfortunately, no one scored any major items, but I picked up some stuff at Harry and David and found a few items to add to my kitchen wish list at Le Creuset! Julie skipped shopping in favor of a nap. Probably should have done the same...

Saturday night we fought off the exhaustion of too much sun, prettied ourselves up and headed out for a nice seafood dinner at a local joint that's been around for ages, Captain Dave's.

We are laughing in this picture because the little dude that was taking the picture for us had three cameras to juggle and the poor thing was getting heckled by one of the girls (who shall remain nameless). Typical us.

We had planned to make a night of it, but as I hinted before, we aren't as young as we used to be and we had a bit of sun that day, so we went back to the hotel and fixed a drink, got in our jammies and just hung out, old-school sleepover style. There were no pillow fights, sorry guys! (Like there are any men reading my blog. Ha!) It was hilarious and a perfect close to the weekend.

Oh, what an exercise in friendship and patience and love a girls weekend away is. I truly, truly love each and every one of these girls and I am grateful for the time we got to spend together hanging out and enjoying each other. As there always is with a gaggle of girls, we had a bit of drama, a bit of whining, a bit of trying to get everyone on the same page. At the end of the day, it was all worth it, but the next time I plan one of these adventures, someone please remind me of what I am getting myself into, m'kay? ;)