Girls Vacation!

I was blessed to spend the last week on the road with three of my favorite ladies!  My best friend, my mom and one of my aunts and I hit the road from our home in the Hoosier state and made our way to Florida for my cousin's wedding.  We spent a couple of days on the beach and then headed up to Georgia for a few days with my sister who just a baby last month.  What a good time with great ladies!  Here are a few of the highlights from our trip.

The first of many gas station stops... though may aunt's car got 40 mpg!  ;-)  whoohoo!

Our first day on the beach!  No, I'm not that short... there was an incline!  seriously.

We had used FlavortownUSA to find Diner, Drive-in and Dives in the areas we'd be traveling.  The closest one we found was the Alpine Steakhouse.  We tried alligator... it was cool to be able to say that we had it but we found it to be a bit chewy (my aunt said its been that way the other times she's tried it too), so we probably won't become big alligator junkies in the future. 

We did get the TurDucKen sandwich, which was like a thanksgiving dinner all wrapped up in a nice little bun.  Good stuff!

A few of us from my mom's side of the family all dressed up for the beach wedding.

It was a beautiful small ceremony on the beach with close friends and family.  What a blessing to be able to share their special day.

My uncle has always had a way with words and he brought a lot of us to tears with his toast. 

 

We got a little crafty while we stayed at my sister's house in Georgia.  She wanted to change the color scheme in her living room.  We made a trip to Goodwill and got the picture above.  Ugh!  But it was only $11 so we snatched it up.

We ModPodged old book paged onto it and let them dry.  Then we placed vinyl letters (though we had to stick them to the carpet once or twice to help them become slightly less sticky to avoid destroying the modpodged pages) to spell out their family name.  

My mom painted over the whole thing.  She used a wash technique so that you can still see the book pages a bit in places and you get a lot of texture throughout the piece.  My sis loves it and it brings a whole new color to the room!

My friend got a tattoo of "love & prayers" in her late grandma's handwriting.  Precious. 

We took a day to tour a couple of plantations north of Atlanta.  They were beautiful!

This one was the childhood home of Theodore Roosevelt's mother.

We tried to find another Diner, Drive-in and Dive place but it was only open for dinner and we were hungry girls. 

Thankfully a local turned us to Fat Matt's Rib Shack which was awesome!  The food was delicious (and between the four of us we tried a bit of nearly everything).  I even bought a bottle of their BBQ sauce to bring home for my hubs.  Can't wait to use it!

One day we spent the afternoon at the State Botanical Gardens with my cousin and her daughter.  It was a perfect day to spend wandering around the beautiful grounds!

I had a wonderful week with these ladies.  It was such a great break from reality.  What a blessing to have them in my life!  Love you guys!