Girls Trip 2010

During my so-called “Digital Sabbatical” I was lucky enough to enjoy two amazing beach vacations. Now, I live in Kansas. You cannot be more landlocked then me. But the beach….oh the beach, I love you so! I never wanna let you go! Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you….wait. What?

(Yes, I just Rick Rolled you…I am very up to date and current. You love it.)

Sooo….anyway.

The first beach trip was with some of my best friends on the planet, who all decided (somewhat on a whim) that we needed a vacation together. I’ve never really had my own girls trip (save the B. Spears extravaganza of 2009), and I’ve never left Lucy for more than two nights in a row since she was born. The only time I’ve even gone far enough away from her that a plane transported me was for a work trip to Colorado when she was a wee babe. And yes, she’s four. So that’s FOUR YEARS. It was time, people.

You may remember last year when Trent, Lu and I decided to spring a surprise on our friend Abbie by showing up unannounced at her family’s condo in Destin, Florida. Or maybe not. But it happened. I swear. Anyway, this year we were talking about said trip and how wonderful and lovely it was and how we needed to get all of our girlfriends to head down to Destin for a long weekend of girl bonding time and sunshine. And by bonding time we obviously meant drinking vodka on the beach until we passed out. Sounded like a plan to me.

About two weeks after we all booked our tickets I found out I was pregnant with Taco John. Now, I’m not sure if you were reading this site back in the day (unless your name is Mara), but my pregnancy with Lucy was basically filled with me hanging out by myself while my friends drank heavily and had fun and acted like most 23-year-olds do. I was miserable. I was mad at them and sad for myself, and basically an all around grump. So I was a bit worried about this girls trip. Would I be all Negative Nancy again? Would I feel left out? Would all my friends ditch me unless they needed a designated driver?

I’m happy to say, apparently time changes people. Who knew? In the five years since I was a lonely pregnant loser, many of my girlfriends have gotten married and had kids of their own. And on this trip, for the first time in a long, LONG time, I really felt like I was part of the group again. We shared stories of scary in-laws (theirs, not mine, I promise!), nagging husbands and annoying habits of toddlers. We gushed over how much we missed our kids and our families, and discussed our living situations (buying houses in the suburbs, renting amazing apartments in the city, moving multiple times).

Don’t get me wrong. There was plenty of old school fun as well. Certain people (cough, cough) definitely drank themselves to sleep on the beach and several evenings were spent watching marathons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians on E!. But I, for once, just enjoyed it all. I didn’t feel left out of the drinking or partying, because I refused to let it bother me. I just had an amazing time with five of the most wonderful girls in the world, and I was never hungover. SCORE!

Many upbeat fist pumps go out to (from left in photo above) Abbie, Megan, Kristi, Hayley and Theresa. You girls made this trip one that I will remember for as long as my memory holds out. Seeing that yesterday I forgot my keys twice and forgot a conversation I had 15 minutes after I had it, that may not be long. That’s why we take pictures of things like this.

A super huge special thanks goes out to Abbie, who not only let us take over her family condo, but also forced us to take photos in matching outfits, even though I bitched and moaned and complained that it was totally dorky. It is totally dorky. But also totally adorable, and I’m so glad we did it.

On our next episode, what happened when the group above meets a minihorse on the side of a highway in Alabama? Do we save the horse? Do we scream at pitches only dogs can hear? Do we embellish stories so it seems as if we tackled said horse and returned it to its owner in the back of our big red pickup truck? You’ll have to come back tomorrow to find out….