Girls Weekend and More Dirt

Well, after almost a year of planning, the 30th Birthday Celebratory Girls Weekend Trip finally arrived!  My 5 best friends from high school and I were all set to go to Blue Ridge, GA for a nice long weekend of catching up, eating, talking about food, and doing nothing.  As you can tell by the picture, two of the girls couldn't make it due to last minute unforeseen events, but Ashley, Haley, Leslie, and I carried on.  The weekend could not have been more relaxing.

Haley brought sweet little Emma Kate along, who was a perfect angel as long as she was touching her momma.  I believe she thought Ashley, Leslie, and I may steal her at any moment.

 Coincidentally, Ashley and I are both pregnant.  (Hence, all the talk about food.) Ashley was 31 weeks here (girl - no name yet) and I was 25 weeks (boy - no name yet).  (In case you are wondering, Ashley is 5'10'' and wearing 3 inch heeled boots.  I am 5'3'' and wearing flats!)  Between the 6 best friends we will soon have ten children, 7 girls and 3 boys.

We stayed in this amazing lake house up in the mountains that Ashley's in-laws so generously opened up to us.  Of course, Ashley (who writes for MyRecipes.com and is awesome at all things food, planning, and organization) came with all the groceries and a plan for every meal.  Technically, we did not have to leave the house for anything. In fact, we only left the house once for about an hour to go into town and browse.  We ate ice cream (while it was snowing, because 2 of us are pregnant and we can) and bought olive oils and balsamic vinegars (which are amazing!!!) at Blue Ridge Olive Oil Company and then went back to the house, never to leave again until it was time to go home. 

                 

I mean, why would anyone want to leave this place?  (The cell phone pictures start here because I was too lazy left my real camera back in my room with my luggage.) Ashley, Haley, and I arrived on Thursday night and Leslie joined us Friday evening just in time for dinner and right before it began to snow.  

On Friday morning I woke up early (not on purpose) and expended the most energy of the whole weekend by walking up those stairs to eat breakfast...

Right here.  Ashley joined me a little while later and we sat and talked and didn't stop talking until we left the house over 48 hours later (except to sleep). 

We all sat by the fire, watched the snow fall, cooked, ate, and talked for the rest of the weekend.  It could not have been more perfect (unless the other girls could have joined us). As I have mentioned before, we have all been friends for 20 years or longer, so we have PLENTY to talk about and laugh about and always have a lot of catching up to do.  I have been so blessed by their friendship and everyone tells me how amazing it is that I still have friends from high school (even though we go back much further than that).  We definitely want to make this trip a yearly tradition.

When I arrived home, several friends were at my house visiting with Ben and Mason.  Our friend Daniel was there who had just returned from a month long trip to the other side of the world and Josh and Shelley were passing through with baby Gracie. I was so glad I got to see them all and hold Gracie!  She is not quite 3 months old here.  Daniel brought me a scarf from Singapore and he brought Ben some chocolates with a name that is not appropriate to write on this blog.  When I tried to eat one of the chocolates Ben said I couldn't because they were for special occasions only.

Flash back photo: Here we all are celebrating Gracie's birthday in December.  This picture belongs in a catch up post I hope to do, but since I might not get to it I wanted to put it here.  I received this picture in an email from Josh that had the subject line "Wedding Stuff" and the e-mail said "Save this for their wedding slide show."  Josh says Mason can "earn" Gracie by cutting his grass since Mason likes mowing so much. Ha Ha! 

                         

And here are the two handsome fellas I left behind for the weekend.  While I was away, Ben went pheasant hunting and Mason got to spend some time with Mimi and Pop.  We now have 9 surprisingly large pheasant to cook that I haven't a clue what to do with.  I have looked up a few recipes, but none of them really appeal to me that much, probably because wild game and pregnancy don't really mesh.  I think I will just pretend it is chicken and maybe that will help.  Ben also won a super nice Yeti cooler by placing second in a skeet shooting contest at the hunt.  I thought that was pretty awesome!  And if you have never heard of a Yeti cooler, don't feel out of the loop because I hadn't heard of them until recently.  Apparently they are big with hunters and fishermen and they cost upwards of 200-300 dollars for a not-very-big one.  Who knew coolers could cost that much?  So, basically I am bragging that my husband won us a kickin cooler that keeps things super cold.  Score.

In the mean time, Little Man has been up to the usual.... riding around on dump trucks and drinking "nook" (milk).

And getting dirty.

And making big messes. 

He literally filled these buckets up with potting soil from my plant-less planter and then dumped it all over himself.  Multiple times.  On purpose.  (Yes, I cut his hair. Super short. Not on purpose.)

I stand amazed at the ideas that pop into that little mind of his.

He insists on wearing boots with everything.  Even pajamas. Sometimes it is a battle to get him to remove them for sleeping.

Dirt in the hair.

At this point, he was carrying buckets of dirt from the planter to the doorstep, sitting down, and throwing handfuls of dirt out of the bucket onto the patio, then refilling the bucket and doing it over again.

The patio looks amazing.  Ready for a garden party.  We will have really cold drinks available in our cooler.  Happy Spring!