Fabulous Music, Florida, & F3 Fun!

We began the month by continuing to pick out the knick knacks for our bathroom remodel. We went to a local hardware store and selected our faucets, shower heads, lights, and sinks. It’s a really fun process, but knowing that it’s something so permanent, you want to take your time in doing it. We had an awesome evening with the Mantaks and Kyle, Erin, and Cooper one night where we met up with everyone for dinner in Hickory and then most of us went to see you Love Canon in concert at a local school auditorium. We had just finished “Dry January” (completely overrated), so this was our celebratory night out. We have seen them so much, and the crowd is usually quite lively, but this was definitely an exception. It was mostly older people, just sitting in their chairs and barely nodding their heads. Since that is not at all how we roll, we found a little nook in the back left of the auditorium where there were no chairs and just danced our faces off while trying not to be too obnoxious to the particularly silent crowd. Definitely a unique venue, but they still rocked it. The next day, we hosted our second annual super bowl party for all of our neighborhood friends. We ended up having about 30 people come over to celebrate in what was an extremely boring game that I really didn’t even watch because we were having too much fun hanging out with everyone.

The next day, I flew to New Orleans for a large work-related conference called DistribuTECH. It is my company’s biggest show of the year (besides our own) and we spend many months preparing for it. It was a huge success—we had tons of booth traffic and it was great to see my co-workers. My fabulous friend, Laura, even drove from Laurel, MS to have dinner and spend the night one evening! It was so awesome to spend time with her! Trent had a meeting with the Y Guides dads to plan out the year and determine which longhouses they will attend. Hanleigh got all dressed up with her best girlfriends for the annual Valentine’s sweetheart dance at school and showed off her awesome moves. Originally, she wasn’t planning on going, but when she realized all of her buddies were going to be there, she quickly changed her mind.

Trent has been souping up his car lately by doing some modifications to it and drove down to South Carolina one day to meet up with a guy who specializes in Toyota Sequoias. While he was gone, I took the girls to see Aquaman and wouldn’t you know it, I took a little snooze during the movie. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I cannot seem to keep my eyes open during any movie, regardless of where I am.

We had our monthly Selfish Club at Julie’s house, where the theme was PJs and side ponytails. As always, we had an awesome time laughing and acting silly. The next day, one of Brayden’s friends starred in a local play called “Grey Gardens”. It depicts members of the Kennedy family and how completely dysfunctional they were. It was definitely a very mature play, but the BEAM team attended and had a blast supporting their friend, Annie. We celebrated the anniversary of Terry being stationed in Thailand while he was in the military by eating at a local thai restaurant. Brayden had her monthly Cotillion class as well.

I attended my company’s annual planning meeting for our conference in Marco Island, Florida at the JW Marriott. That hotel is absolutely stunning! This is probably one of my most favorite meetings of the year because it is all about event planning and getting to meet our awesome board members. We got a lot accomplished at that meeting, but now is when the real work begins. The trip to Marco Island culminated with an unbelievably fabulous girls weekend where seven of us all met at Leslie’s house for an incredible time. I arrived Friday afternoon just in time for Leslie, Steph, Carol and I to have a tasty Mexican lunch and then came back to the house and just chilled out for a bit. We went out to dinner pretty late that night and my good friend and co-worker, Bob, met us out for drinks with his beautiful wife, Terry. The next day, we all went for a three-mile run and then got cleaned up for an amazing afternoon on the beach, complete with the requisite cocktail from “La Ritz’s” Gumbo Limbo bar. We stayed there long enough to see the sun begin to set and then packed our things up to get ready for a fun evening out.We got all dressed up and went to Hampton Social for dinner, which was very trendy and delicious. After that, we went to Cavo and then to the Blue Martini for some dancing where hilarity ensued, as always. Between ordering the wrong shots and Carol giving the DJ a thumbs down anytime he played a bad song, to getting dirty looks by girls in the bathroom and Laura making us laugh through her noises, we had an incredible time. The next day, we all we’re lucky enough to be treated to an awesome boat ride by Captain Joe! Emilia and Chase joined us as well and we spent the afternoon boating out to Island Gypsy on the Isle of Capri for some tasty lunch and beverages! It was such an incredible weekend with a great group of fabulous women. My stomach hurts from all the laughing.

Brayden was able to get together with her BEAM team one day and Trent enjoyed an awesome time with his F3 friends at Beech Mountain for a day of skiing. It was an 80s-themed weekend, so I’m sure there were plenty of neon-colored ski outfits all over the slopes. While he was gone, I took the kids over to Kendall’s house for dinner one night so we could catch up with each other and hang out. The next evening, I hosted a slumber party for each of our girls to invite two of their best friends, for a total of six girls! Sometimes I think that it’s easier to manage them when there are more children. At this age, they’re pretty much self-sufficient and we just had to intervene once. We ordered pizza, made ice cream sundaes, had a dance party, and other than that, I just left the girls alone to have fun. The month wrapped up with us attending Nash’s birthday party and my mom and I getting a facial and dinner together for some much-needed relaxation time. She’s the best and we definitely need to do things like this more often!

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