Always Bloggy Finale: A Novella

Alrighty, I'm here to wrap up the rest of the Always Bloggy weekend. Check out our campfire s'mores bar and our Philadelphia sightseeing and even our welcome bags, if you missed it.  And this might get wordy so bear with me. 

Ok, so somehow the weekend just kept getting better and better, so that by the time the girls had to leave, I was legit sad. The whole weekend, I had girls in my house, watching my boy, cooking in my kitchen, kicking back on the couch...and it was awesome. In fact, as soon as Nellie arrived from Seattle on Friday afternoon, she volunteered to wrangle Gabe while Bethany and I did important things like arrange graham crackers *just so* and swipe on some eyeliner. She's got a son around Gabe's age so I thought nothing of it and headed inside to shower. However, as I was sitting there doing my makeup, a thought occured to me. I had just handed over my son to a complete stranger. (Did I mention Nellie had de-lurked to tell us she wanted to come meet us? So awesome. But yeah, a stranger). I should be a little more cautious, right? So just to assuage my guilt, I crept over and peeked out through the blinds. Yep, there he was, wandering around the lawn and there she was, following right behind, just like I assumed he would be. We joked about it later on, but the moral of the story is that I felt immediately comfortable with these girls and it was more like a girls weekend than a meetup...which really, how much better can you get?

So anyway, let's bring you up to date on the weekend happenings.  We had gone sightseeing on Saturday then stopped at Jim's Steaks on South St so that the girls could get a real cheesesteak. I gave them all lessons on how to order, and after a brief gluten allergy quandry, we took our steaks and inhaled them. Then it was back home/hotels for us. We had dinner reservations that night at Limoncello in downtown West Chester, a cute little college town. After waiting forEVER for a table that was supposedly reserved we were finally seating and the feasting could commence. Most of us picked a wine partner and split a bottle. Because really, how else do you become better friends with somebody other than eye up that last glass and wonder who's gonna get it?

So after lots of awesome food, hilarious conversations, labor stories, pan flute-playing and more drinks, the night came to an end. For some. See, we had a pretty diverse group of ladies, including one with child and one not quite the legal drinking age. So while some went home and got a good night's sleep, some of us um, didn't. Some of us found the bar playing old school Mace and DMX and shut.it.down. Some of us drank nine vodka and cranberries. Nine. Btw, that somebody was Bethany, who had alerted us to the fact that she had.never.been.hammered. Our mission that night was to change that. And we did. Proudly.

Some of us crawled up on dumpsters because it seemed like a good idea. Some of us shared secrets you share with your best girls. Some of us came home, found my emergency bottle of champagne and drank it out of tumblers while cuddled up in bed together.

Oh and all of us got a big old FAIL on picture taking this entire weekend. All we could come up with is like one normal pic and crappy cell phone pics. I guess that just means we were having too good a time to care, right? Right.

So Sunday morning rolled around. Ow. After heading to bed around 4am, this girl was not feeling so hot. You know what made me feel better? Nellie & KP arriving at my house with bags of groceries and Nellie proceeding to make us all breakfast. I know, right? Could she be any more awesome? Don't think so. I was complaining to whoever would listen that I'd like to be the sort of person Nellie is (besides tall, blonde and hot). The kind that just cooks, cleans and babysits at someone else's house because she can't sit still. Me? I'm just lazy. But I get points for wanting to be like that, right?

Ok, so next up on the agenda was doing some shopping. First stop...terrain. Of course. It's sparkly and magical and full of pretty pretty things. So off we went...

Ladies and the gourds who love them -- Bethany and KP

Normal picture alert -- Bethany and Lauren

I ordered everyone into the firepit section and made them drape themselves in wool blankets. No matter it was creeping past 80 degrees. No matter at all.

Since we had gotten a late start to the day *coughhangovercough*, most of the girls had to get on the road. Turn those smiles upside down. But John told me we couldn't build bunk beds and make everyone move into the guest house and call it Camp Shannanigans, so home they went. But you know who stuck around for another day? These girls...that's Bethany and Nellie if you weren't paying attention.

We decided to skip any more shopping and head back to my house to relax. And by relax, I mean, we all busted out our laptops and hung out on my couch. Because what's a blogger meetup without some blog talk? At some point, we decided more food was a good idea, so John and I took the girls down to our favorite authentic Mexican restaurant. A shit-ton of chips and tacos later, we were all ready to head to bed. Unfortch, we had to start the next day out by taking Nellie to the airport. Bethany and I held back our tears and embarrassing breakdowns while we said goodbye for now. Then we pulled our shit together. We had a baby to visit!

We drove up to visit Lizzie Beth so that the two of them could finally meet and we could all oooo and ahhh over little Hunter. Btw, Lizzie Beth has this mothering thing DOWN. She found time to look awesome AND make us lunch. Thanks LB! Plus, that little peanut of a baby is adorbs!

Totally not my pic. I stole it from LB's blog. Hope she doensn't mind.

After we were all exhausted from keeping Gabe from trying to climb LB's stairs, we took off. Bethany had a plane to catch and I had tears to let flow. So we dropped her off and she flew back to the land of cheese, leaving the Wellingtons to fend for themselves again. And that my friends, was Always Bloggy in Philadelphia.  For the most part, it went according to the loose plan that Bethany and I had crafted. But what surprised us is how close a group of us got over one little weekend. So yeah, just awesome. And yeah, we're totally gonna do another one. Bethany and I are already planning the opening ceremonies...