Girls Weekend

This past weekend six other girls and I left our kids and husbands at home and drove to Moab, Utah for a short break from reality. Friday morning we loaded up in my sister's mini-van to make the three-hour drive to southern Utah. If you've never heard of Moab, it's the place where this is located:

I'm sure you all recognize The Delicate Arch (if not from the Utah license plates, then definitely from Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote).

We arrived in Moab to find that the condo we rented was absolutely amazing. They were newly constructed and included beds to sleep all seven of us, a fully functional kitchen, two decks (one with a brand-new gas grill), and were furnished and decorated like a home. I didn't feel like I was staying in a hotel at all, it felt like home. A couple of hours after exploring the condo, we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant called La Hacienda. When we were seated we noticed a group of people sitting a couple of tables down from us, with one man wearing an OU hat. Sarah (an OSU graduate), who doesn't have a shy bone in her body (or maybe it was the two glasses of wine she'd had before dinner), walked up to the table and said to the man, "Excuse me, but you're wearing the wrong hat," then made the arm motions for "OSU" and proceeded to give the whole table a hard time. This sort of banter went back and forth between our tables for the duration of our meal. When we were finished, our waiter informed us that everyone's dinner and drinks were taken care of. At first we didn't believe that the "OU table" had paid for our dinner. We asked the waiter quite a few times if they had really paid for all of us. Yes, they did. We didn't even get a chance to thank them because they left before we were done with dinner. How cool is that? My theory is that Sarah and her "nursing boobs" had something to do with it.

We spent the rest of the night hanging out in the condo laughing, talking, laughing some more, learning interesting stuff about each other, and drinking wine. We didn't get to sleep until almost 2:30am.

The next morning I got up and made French toast for breakfast before heading out for our rafting trip. Our river guide, Amy, was pretty cool and joined in with several of our jokes and conversations.

All of us before our rafting trip:

All of us on our raft - let me apologize for blinding you with my legs:

Sarah and I in the river:

Allison with our little friend (do you see the lizard?)
Floating down the river:


Sarah, gripping the rope with her toes ... my pale feet couldn't quite do it.

Sarah and Allison laughing too hard to pull Nici back into the raft:

Amy, our guide:

After the river, we planned to hike up to Delicate Arch, but were way too tired after only four hours of sleep. A few of us had already done the hike before, so we stayed behind while the rest did the hike.

That night we ate out again in hopes that someone might again notice Sarah and her nursing boobs and buy us dinner. No such luck!

Yes, those are matching shirts. Don't be jealous of how cool we are ...

... or of how sexy Nici is:

We drove back Sunday, all of us exhausted from the week with stomachs sore from all the laughter. It was bittersweet coming back to reality. But luckily, I got to come home to this: