Beach Getaway with the Girls

The last week of school my friends, Dara and Brandi, invited me to tag along with a group of girls to the beach. I was completely surprised and after talking about it with Josh, I quickly agreed. I had not expected a trip to the beach at all this summer, so I was very excited about getting to go. Josh and I made arrangements for Eli while I was going to be gone, I packed my stuff, said my goodbyes, and hopped in the car with my girls.

My friends, Megan and Diane, rode with me on the way to Gulf Shores, and the weather was AWFUL the entire way there. When I say AWFUL, I literally mean if you had looked at the radar during the time it took us to drive there, we were under the red dot (the area where the storm is the strongest) the ENTIRE time. My hazards were on, the wipers were going full blast, and you couldn't even hear the radio because of the rain. God watched over us and we arrived in Gulf Shores safe and sound that night. After a yummy supper at The Oyster House, meeting another part of our group of girls, and shopping for groceries, we crashed into bed at the condo. We all said prayers that the weather would be nice and sunny the next day.

We woke up to overcast skies and after some coffee, sour cream blueberry muffins, and a quick call to my boys, we all decided to go shopping that morning and wait for sunny skies after lunch. We drove to Foley and shopped the outlet stores and then came back to the condo for lunch. The weather was BEAUTIFUL by now, so we all changed into our swimsuits, gathered our sunscreen, magazines, books, chairs, and towels, and headed to the beach. This is what greeted us when we arrived...



My new friend, Lindsey, took a lot of these pictures and really captured what we did our entire trip. Pretty much every day was a version of this...

It was so nice to relax and spend some time with these girls!

Friday night we all went to Tacky Jack's for supper. Since the wait was at least an hour long everywhere we went, we spent our time waiting taking pictures.

Megan and me

Diane and me

Megan and Diane

Our Whole Group of Girls

Diane, Jamie, Dara, Megan, Angela, Lindsey,

Brandi, Crystal, me, Shannon

Dara, me, Diane, Angela

View from the pier

Saturday was spent enjoying more of this...

That night we went to a very nice restaurant called Cobalt. Once again, we had about an hour wait, so we took some more pictures :)

Me, Dara, Angela, Diane

Group Shot

Beautiful sunset on the bay

Me, Mega, Diane

After devouring our dinner (the tuna was DEVINE!), we passed by the cupcake display and each decided that we had to try some. For $2 how could you not?

Diane and I shared a salted caramel cupcake and OH. MY. WORD! That cupcake was wonderful!!

After inhaling  devouring eating our dessert, some of us went to The Hangout to go listen to some bands. It was lots of fun!  

Me, Brandi, Diane

Me and Diane

My last day at the beach was Sunday, so I stayed out as long as I could to soak up all the sunshine I could. For our last meal in Gulf Shores, we ate at an Italian restaurant called Grazie. Yum-o! We took one last group shot to remember our time together and then headed back to the condo to get ready to leave the next day. 

I'm so glad I got to spend some time at the beach with this great group of girls. We talked and shared and really got to know each other a lot better. I made some new friends and made deeper bonds with old ones. I left the beach feeling refreshed and invigorated. I couldn't wait to go home to my boys, who I missed so incredibly much! Thanks, girls, for an incredible trip! Love you all lots and I can't wait for next year's trip!!