Last weekend I got to attend my annual girls weekend with some dear friends from college. We realized that this was the SEVENTH time we have met since graduating. How is that possible?!?!?
When I got to the airport, I had to wait for a couple of hours for Meredith and Em Tall to arrive so we could carpool to Kelly's. While sitting in the baggage claim, I was thrilled to bump into my roommate for three years at Baylor, Tracey (Jones) Shepperd! She was returning from Disneyworld with her husband and their three sons. I had never met her boys before (her oldest just turned five), so it was a special blessing to be able to visit with her sweet family for a while.
I love seeing old friends in unexpected places.
This year, Kelly Evans hosted all by herself in her beautiful home in Houston. Usually two or more girls take on the job - it's quite a feat to accomplish it by oneself! She thought through every single detail. She chose the theme "I've Never" for the weekend, so our days together were filled with activities that most of us have never done.
Side note: if you are confused by all the cupcake paraphernalia floating around these pictures, it's because we call ourselves "The Cupcakes." This began many years ago when we had a camping/girl scouts kind of theme for one of our weekends - we started joking around that we should be called Troop Cupcake. And the name stuck. We like to think that we have contributed to the current cupcake craze, trend-setters that we are, since we chose the name long before cupcakes were so wildly popular!
Thursday night: Eating breakfast for dinner. We each got to create our own unique pancake flavor as we arrived to Kelly's house. What a fun way to kick the good times off! One of the highlights of every weekend is always the opening of our welcome bags together. Since the theme is kept top secret, we are always very excited to open our bags and read through our itineraries so we can finally figure out what the weekend holds!
Friday morning: Touring the Blue Bell ice cream factory. The tour of this Brenham, TX-based creamery culminated with us getting to choose any ice cream flavor that we wanted to sample. I picked Candy Jar, which is caramel ice cream with peanut butter cups, chocolate chunks, peanut brittle, chunks of caramel and chocolate crisp pieces. YUM!
Friday afternoon: Self-defense lesson. Did you know that a sharpie, not mace or a taser, is the best way to take down a predator? This is just one of the many valuable tips we took away from this session. Bad guys, beware. There are now twelve more ladies in the world who are armed to attack against evil.
Friday night we went to dinner at a local wine bar with delicious food and a chic atmosphere. Nothing beats a night out with the girls!
Saturday morning: Crocheting lesson. Although I recently learned to crochet, it was good for me to get a quick refresher course from our resident expert, Meredith. We started on some cute pink and brown hats, which we plan to wear if we ever go skiing for Girls Weekend!
Saturday afternoon: Wine making and bottling. This activity was something that none of us had ever done before, and it turned out to be so much fun! There is a local shop that allows you to mix your own wine, and then bottle it, cork it and label it. We opted to choose some pre-mixed wine (since after mixing, wine takes at least 8 weeks to age properly), but we still got to sterilize and fill the bottles, cork and seal them, and then sticker each one with special labels designed with love by me. :)
Saturday night was our Awards Dinner, to which we all wore a bridesmaid dress for the second time. (Very few people have ever worn a bridesmaid dress twice, right?) Kelly's gracious aunt let us take over her house for the evening.
Before the weekend began, each of us had voted on a superlative that best represented each girl. After dinner, each girl received a delicious cupcake award for her distinctive attribute as chosen by the group. We even got to give acceptance speeches!
The awards table.
Kelly made these cupcake prizes - aren't they amazing? If you can believe it, they tasted even better than they look!
If anyone is curious, yours truly was honored to receive the "Kindest Cupcake" award, with honorable mentions for Best Smile, Most Creative, Most Beautiful and Best Behind. Ha!
After dinner, we gathered for our traditional sashes and patches picture (we add new patches for each activity that we complete).
Every time we're together, it's over way too soon! Already looking forward to next year - Alabama, here we come!
2 comments:
From one honorable mention behind to another...it was FUN to see you :) I'm missing you already! We've got to keep doing our lunges to keep up with our booties..hahaha.
Ha ha, Val!
Em - great recap. I love re-reading through our weekend and can't believe it flies by so quickly every time.
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