Overnight in Birmingham

Sommer, Jolie, Sarah and me

In honor of my friend Sarah's 30th birthday, we (Sarah, Jolie, Sommer & I) packed the car up full of our overnight bags as well as a ton of guilty pleasures - such as candy, salty snacks, drinks and celebrity trash magazines - and headed to Birmingham, AL (a 2 hour drive). It was to be a fun-filled shopping/spa/dinner out kind of girls' trip. And that's exactly what it was - minus the spa. Too much shopping was in order for us to visit the spa, so we canceled our appointments and headed in the direction of big(ger*) city shopping. (*Comparably speaking, here, to what we have in the armpit of the nation that is Meridian.)

We looked like four kids at Disneyland, pointing in all different directions. "Look, Bebe! J.Crew! Arden B.! And ooh, Food Court!" Which is of course where we started. Then we shopped and shopped until we could no longer stand up straight. ha, ha. And we headed back to the awesome hotel that Jolie found for us... ever-so-conveniently connected to the looooovely mall.

We were very excited about the equally loooovely hotel. Jolie booked us on an all women's floor and we entered the room to find the most comfy beds, a huge, clean bathroom and a fully-stocked mini refrigerator. We opened it to find little shot bottles, candy bars, cokes, etc. So we started pulling stuff out to look at it. Each time we pulled out an item, we heard these little "click, click... clickclicks." Being the ignorant hill-jacks that we are, we failed to understand that you are charged every time you pull something out of the mini fridge, regardless if you consume it or not. "That'll be $79.99 for your stupidity, ladies." But Jolie quickly enlightened us and called the front desk to ask them to take it off our bill! Oops.

Dinner out was so fun. We headed to a Mexican restaurant where we enjoyed sitting out in the enclosed patio and listened to an awesome local cover band. We proceeded to be first out on the dance floor. Some might say, "what dance floor?" But we didn't say that. Our thought: large-ish space with no tables = dance floor!

Fun times, fun times. Thanks to you gals for such a fantastic trip! And especially to Jolie for planning it all perfectly and then driving us. Sarah, I hope you had a great birthday!

I was so excited to see my little girl when we got back the next day. It was the longest time I'd spent away from her. I know she had fun with her daddy, but I couldn't wait to get my hands on her! She squealed and laughed when she saw me, which warmed my heart.