I had been looking forward to this past weekend for quite some time. A girls trip to the beach was just what the doctor ordered for my soul. It's been a long time since I've laughed and danced or drank that much.
Hi, I'm Maggie, I'm an over packer.
We loaded the car and poured the first round of mimosas and headed south. I was so excited I could barely contain it. It was beautiful when we left Gardendale. Sunny and probably 65 degrees. The further south we drove the darker and more cloudy it got. Finally, while we were eating lunch the bottom fell out. It was pouring rain. Perfect.
We finally arrived at the coast, greeted by fog and mist and just all around ugly weather. We unpacked the cars and ran inside to choose rooms. I totally felt like I was on the Real World. After we unloaded we made lists and headed to pick up some essentials. When we returned from errand running it was as if angels were singing while the clouds parted and we hurried to the beach to watch the sunset.
Our home for the weekend. Isn't it cute!
The Bride and Maid of Honor
I was very excited about my new hat.
After we watched the sunset, we headed in the get ready for dinner. We went to a local place Nikki's and it was delicious. We were early enough for the "Early Bird" special (which was 6-8) which made me laugh. After dinner we decided to head to the FloraBama. I'd never been so I was pretty excited.
Let me offer a piece of advice, if you are a 20 something woman and are in need of a self-esteem boost head on down to the FloraBama right at the end of the off season. These guys apparently haven't seen a woman under the age of 65 in months. You would have thought the Victoria's Secret swimsuit models walked in. I felt like we were at a meat market. Or as Madelaine so profoundly put it, "I feel like a puppy at a pet shop".
Now I will say that while it was fun to not pay for a drink all night, I had a moment where I felt really, really old. Never in my life had I been to a bar and been hit on by someone younger than me. They were always my age or older. I appreciated the fact that I apparently looked 23-24 but it was weird when someone asked where I went to school. I nicely said I graduated from Alabama, they proceeded to ask when and I told them 2007. The sweet kid, surprised, said, "that's when I started college." So yeah, I felt about 100 years old.
Jaclyn and Lauren (the bride)
The group
Madelaine (maid of honor) & the bride
Marion & Erin
Marion, Faye, Madelaine, Lauren, Me and Erin
We danced the night away. Sometimes on the table so it was harder for the old men to approach us. Finally we headed home.
We'd been keeping an eye on the weather for Friday. The reports didn't look promising so I decided that if the sun was out when I woke up I was headed to the beach, it didn't matter what time it was.
I woke up at about 7:30 and the sun was out. Madelaine and I jumped out of bed and suited up to head to the beach. We poured our mimosas and set up camp right at the water. It was still a bit cloudy and cool out but we could tell that the day was not going to be a total loss and that made me a very happy girl. The other girls slowly joined us and we settled in for a really nice day on the beach. It wasn't long until this guy showed up with his skim board to show us his skills. Apparently, the best waves on the beach were right in front of us, funny how that worked out ;) A little while later his buddy showed up with his surf board (yes, a surf board in the Gulf. You can imagine how impressive that was!) Mind you neither of them ever said a word. They eventually went in, well a little later the guy shows up with his guitar. On the beach. He strummed a few tunes just in earshot. He finally built up the courage to come talk to us. I'm pretty sure I spit out my drink when he said he was 20 years old. Then he said he was a model for Hollister but didn't have to work for the next 2-10 years. It was one lie after another and he totally thought we bought it. We're pretty sure he was about 17 and skipped school to hang out at the beach. Poor Kid.
While we were inside eating lunch, my mom called so I stepped out on the deck to talk to her. (They were having bad weather back home so she was making sure we were being "weather aware"). I somehow got two splinters in my foot. I thought I could get one of them but the other was pretty deep. Luckily, we had a nurse on hand. She numbed it with some ice and went to work. It was a simple procedure and I was back on the beach in no time. Surprisingly, that was our only injury of the weekend. (I think) Around 3:00 it started to sprinkle and most of us has successfully fried at least one part of our body so we headed in to make a plan for the night.
We decided on Lulu's and headed out. Here we are at dinner. We had fried green tomatoes as a starter and I was so excited about them. My shrimp was delicious.
About half way through our meal 4 men sat at the table next to us. I kept seeing a flash but didn't think anything of it. Well then one man proceeds to get up and walk to the other end of our table and take a picture of our table. He took several. We just all kinda looked at each other like "Is this really happening?", it was. The guy came back to his table he was laughing with the other guys, so Marion just asked him what the heck he was doing. Why was he taking our picture. He starts talking about how he's taking a picture of the boat docked outside blah, blah, blah. He says something about it being a friends boat and he wanted to send him a picture with us and the boat.
Somehow that conversation ended with us agreeing to take a picture on the boat before we left. Probably not the best decision we've ever made but we lived to tell about it. (They also bought us a round of jager shots. He told our server "if we were old enough")
Yes, this is happening.
I'm sure we're on the internet somewhere other than this blog, oh well.
After dinner and our photo shoot, we were going to ride go carts or play golf but we couldn't find anywhere that was open so we tried out a few local dives but ended up at FloraBama again. It was the same folks from Thursday night plus a few more. Someone had already gotten our table in front of the band so we hung out upstairs for a bit.
We made our way over to the 2009 National Championship banner to have our picture made hoping the annoying guys that were talking to us would get the hint. They didn't.
So we headed down to the dance floor and these nice gentlemen greeted us.
Why yes, of course those are tie-dyed shirts with kittens and puppies on them. I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud when I saw them.
We spent the rest of the night dancing, singing and laughing the night away. There was a bachelor party and they were making the groom walk around with a big cement "ball and chain" attached to his ankle. There were a lot of interesting people there. The band Friday night was not bad. They sang all of our family favorites so I had to sing at the top of my lungs (I still don't have a voice) until the kicked us out.
After we shut the place down we stumbled across the street to Waffle House. Along with most everyone else from the bar. Why does a waffle, hash browns and bacon always sound so good when you've been drinking all day? We got home and went straight to bed, I'm pretty sure it was about 5:00. I can't tell you the last time I stayed out that late.
I woke up around 7:30 rolled over decided I was still drunk and went back to sleep. I don't know what time I finally got up but it was storming so I was in no hurry to get anywhere. It rained all.day.long. Saturday. We sat in the living room watching the rain for approximately 8 hours. We took it easy Saturday night and just went to dinner and rented Bridesmaids. The main excitement at dinner involved me spilling and entire glass of ice water on Erin. That wasn't funny at all and I felt pretty terrible about it. Bridesmaids is so funny but about half way through I went to charge my phone for a few minutes and ended up falling asleep. It was probably for the best because we had to be out by 10:00 the next morning.
Don't you hate the way it's always beautiful the day you have to leave the beach. It was so sunny, a bit cool but totally warmed up Sunday. We were so fortunate to have a pretty day Friday but I still hated leaving. I was ready to see Patrick and Ally though.
Favorite quotes from the weekend:
"Aahhh Shit"
-for some reason the band kept having all 50 people in attendance repeat this throughout the night.
"Are you in a Frat-t-t-ternity?"
- while trying to make small talk.
"Oh so you're drunk now"
-While deciding who was going to drive to dinner one night.
We had a blast. I know this post doesn't do the weekend justice. It was fun to get to know new people and I loved getting to catch up with some old friends. Now this isn't really about the weekend but...
I got really burned on Friday but usually I turn bright red for a couple days and then it turns dark brown. Sometimes I get a little heat rash on my arms but this has never happened. My legs from just above my knees are so swollen and that's the only part that hasn't turned brown. I have cankles. Above is my foot when I got home from work today. I'm starting to worry a bit. Anyone ever had this happen? Should I be more concerned?
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