Weekend Trip to Maryland

Friday night after Joe got off work, we hopped in the car for the VERY long drive to Maryland. We wanted to get there as soon as possible, since that trip is so quick anyway, but about 4 hours into the drive I think Joe was probably thinking we should have waited until Saturday morning. It's a looooong drive, and he does it all himself. And I try, I really, really do, to stay awake and keep him company, but OMG, you get me in a car no matter what time of day it is, and I'm a complete goner. I totally slept most of the way. Poor man.

My friend Laura (who I worked with at Birthday in a Box and who has graciously and amazingly offered to do my flowers for my wedding) invited us to stay with her since we had some wedding stuff to go over anyway. And we finally arrived around 1:30 a.m.

It was an iffy night, to say the least. We were already exhausted (yes, I was still exhausted even though I slept a good part of the trip) and Jackson wouldn't stop whining once we got in the bedroom and went to bed. In his defense, he was a little overwhelmed since Laura has a dog that Jackson has never met, and we didn't really let them play at all before bedtime. And Laura's dog, Bella, kept coming up to the door and Jackson could hear her, and OMG, it was awful. But eventually everyone went to sleep and all was well.

Oh, and why was Bella up so late? Because Laura was STILL UP finishing up some bouquet mockups she wanted to show me the next day. Crazy, crazy woman stayed up all night working on them. To see more about the flowers, you can read all about it on my wedding blog here

.

Laura working on the flowers...

The next morning we woke up and took the dogs for a walk. Laura was still in bed (but had set the coffee pot to start brewing at 9:00 a.m., which is exactly when we got up, so we had fresh coffee - Best. Hostess. Ever!) so we hopped in the car and went to grab some bagels for breakfast.

When we got back from breakfast, Laura was up, so we all got ready for the day and told Stuart to get his ass up to Maryland.

Hanging out...

Once everyone was ready to go, we headed out to Men's Warehouse for some tux shopping! I was sooo excited about dressing the boys up, but it didn't exactly turn out the way I expected. Let's just say that grooms get the short end of the stick when it comes to picking out wedding attire. You can read more about that as well here. (I just don't want to bore everyone with all my wedding stuff if you don't care, hence the reason for the other blog!)

But here's a preview.

Another good friend of mine, Claudia (also from Birthday in a Box) met us at Men's Warehouse and then came back to Laura's with us for dinner and wine. Lots and lots of wine.

Cheers!

And we drank, and gossiped, and talked about the wedding, and discussed future plans, and drank some more, and talked about Birthday in a Box, and talked about loves and hates and fears and excitment, and it was just THE BEST! I haven't had a night like that with my girls in a long time.

And the boys played sniper games on Laura's huge-ass T.V.

Look at the concentration on Joe's face. He needed this. He doesn't get to do 'boy stuff' enough.

And then Laura made guacamole and we drank some more, and the boys joined us.

That giant glass had a never-ending bottom, I think.

Jackson chilled with a toy of Bella's that he fell in love with.

And then I decided we needed to play Guitar Hero. (That game is awesome. I'm so pissed they stopped making it for the Wii.) And when we saw the guitars Laura had, we all totally felt like rock stars, because, that's right, Laura's boyfriend is an ACTUAL ROCK STAR who is all famous among the 'death metal' crowd and yes, his band name is awful and horrible, but I don't care because we actually know a famous person!

And Ava didn't care either. She rocked the Dying Fetus guitar like the little rock princess she is!

"What are you waiting for? Let's rock this place!"

Okay, maybe we aren't TOTAL rock stars, because we all pretty much passed out at midnight, which is pretty much when the real rock stars get going, but oh well. I was just impressed I actually stayed awake past Joe.

Do you see Jackson laying next to Joe's leg? All three of them were totally spent. It was priceless.

It was really a fabulous weekend with fabulous friends and even though it was a quick trip, it was well worth it.

It was a long drive home (again, Joe at the wheel), even longer due to some serious traffic jams, but I actually did stay awake for this one (okay, I stayed awake until maybe the last 30 minutes, which is definitely a win) and now we're home safe and sound.

Laura let us take a couple of the flower mock-ups home with us, and Jackson used one as a pillow at times.

Too cute!

Hope everyone had a fablous weekend as well!