The anticipated trip with "the girls"

Please excuse the blurriness of this pic, I still love it! Obviously I was taking it. Does it hurt your eyes? Yeah, mine too. :)


This past weekend was spent with my dearest and nearest friends. There are four of us that have been close friends for oh about 14 years. If you read all of our blogs then you will be probably get 4 different versions of this trip but just bear with us. We left on Thurs. night (later than we wanted to, sorry Naomi) and arrived at our cabin in Pigeon Forge about 11:30 PM. Rachel came the next morning due to several other scheduling difficulties. We really did have a good time. Sometimes it seemed like we were 90 but we had a wonderful time, relaxing, catching up, eating out without children, shopping and whatever else we could find to do. Of course my pics aren't that good since they are taken with my phone. So, I'm sure the other 3 blogs of this trip will have better pics. But I'll post what I have.
Friday, mostly, was spent shopping at the outlets in PF. I love those outlets. We hung out in our PJ's until about 11ish until we were hungry for lunch and waited on Rach to get there. Once we left the cabin, we headed for Olive Garden. Wow, I forgot how much I like that place. Sometimes its good, sometimes its not. Merica and I split a seafood fettuccine dish with shrimp and scallops and man, it rocked! Besides that, their salad and bread sticks are awesome.
Shopping then took over until later on in the day when we were, yes, hungry again. This time we opted for TGI Fridays. Haven't been there in so long!



We laughed at this meal more than we've laughed in a long time and you know what entertained us the most? We were taking pics with our cameras/phones and sorting out which ones were terrible and which ones were decent or if we looked 900 pounds or things might be flying thru the air over our heads. Anyhow, laughing with those girls was so much fun. It's the most I've laughed in a long time!














These girls know me. And we know each other well enough to be brutally honest with one another, sometimes maybe even when it hurts. I cherish the fact that I have these close life-long friends that I know I can count on to see me through the struggles of life.






We all turn 33 this year and it seems like yesterday when we were 19, 20 and getting married. We've come a long way and been through some stuff but we've stuck together like glue. We also have 11 children, and one on the way between us.





After our shopping day on Friday, that night for dessert, Rachel brought her fondue pot. How fun! I only have one shot of this and it's pretty dark but here it is.


Then, for Saturday, we planned to see a movie and that's what we did. We ended up seeing one I had already seen but it was fine to see it again with those cats. Did I mention the weather? Terrible. Drizzly and yucky the entire time we were there and cold. It did not stop us from having a great time though. Saturday night we chose Outback and we did that early, like 5. We did some appetizer sharing and laughed some more and discussed life.







My friends are notorious for dressing up in heels and jeans when we go out together. I went against the grain this time and sported tennis shoes and a sweatshirt one day. I told them, I dress up every other day of my life for work so when on vacation, I'm dressing down. Got it?










So, all in all, we had a super good time and it was time well spent catching up on the ups and downs of life with lots of children. I can't wait until we do it again. This time we have to wait for Rach to have her fourth and final baby and get that one nursed and ready to go. But it won't be long before that happens. Baby Jones Hicks will be here before we know it.





Here's my most recent favorite pic of us from Sarah's wedding last May. I didn't get a good group shot from this weekend. Again, please refer to the other 3 blogs when they get this post up there.



One more thing, thanks to my wonderful husband, this trip was possible. He was a rock-star and kept up with our children for 2.5 days! Way to go honey. Kudos to all of the husbands for allowing us to get together as often as we can.