This year our Annual Girls Trip was held in Vail, Colorado! Words cannot describe how much fun we had, and even more so, words cannot begin to explain how much I love, admire and adore each one of these amazing women! How/Why I am so blessed to have these girls as my BFF’s I’ll never know but will be forever grateful they are in my life! This year was our 7th Girls Trip in a row and each year is as much fun (or more) than the year before. To choose a favorite would be next to impossible. Every single year we laugh, we cry, we eat, we laugh some more, we talk about everything under the sun, we try to “exercise”, we catch up on each other’s lives, we stay up late, we sleep in (ok, I sleep in), we take TONS of pictures and we all dread the weekend coming to an end! Since moving I’ve missed these amazing women beyond words but getting together for our trips reminds me that it doesn’t matter where any of us lives, we will ALWAYS be there for each other!
Here are some of the highlights of our trip!
Mindy and I flew in on Wednesday and met for lunch at Park Meadows Mall! We ate at The White Chocolate Grill with Neeley and then shopped for a few hours til we had to pick Neeley up from work and head off to meet up with all the Girls! We may or may not have done some damage to our bank accounts but whose to say, really!
Day 1- Pool Day
Taking in some Sun! Tanya, Brecken and Mindy
For the first time ever we had some cute little babies join us in our fun! Zane (Brecken’s), Houston (Tosha’s) and William (Erin’s)! They were so so good and we hardly even knew they were with us! Sweetest little guys who will all be buddies as they grow up!
Heading to Dinner
We ran into some of “Ryan’s” (as in Trista and Ryan) Fireman Co-workers in Vail and they kindly let us take a picture with them!
DAY 2- Glenwood Springs Adventure Park
Heading up to the top on the Gondola! Top left: Erin and I, Bottom Left to Right: Tosha, Mindy, Erin, Tamara, Me!
Riding the fastest, longest Alpine Slide in the World! The cars were attached to the track and you could FLY!
Mindy, Tamara and I all went bungee jumping! SCARIEST thing EVER!!! That step off the tower is so frightening but so fun! I think the wind may have been the scariest part of it all! We had soooo much fun! The above pics are overexposed but its me stepping off the tower and hanging til they lowered me!
Beautiful Mindy (love this picture of Mindy!) and Yvette and I!
THE ARMSWING AT THE ADVENTURE PARK
There really is no way to explain what exactly the “Armswing” is. Its something you have to witness and experience for yourself to really understand what it is and how TERRIFYING it truly is but I’ll give it a try! It’s this HUGE mechanical swing that seats 4 people. It starts to swing, similar to how a pirate ship at an amusement park swings, going a little higher with every swing. Eventually it reaches its highest level, swings there a few times and then starts to swing lower until it stops. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, in this particular case, you must add in the fact that the swing goes out over the side of a cliff and so when you are at the height of the swing you are looking straight down the side of a mountain. (The operators said that if you fell out you would be dead in 4 seconds, comforting, right?) Anyway, we all decided to give it a go, some more scared than others. Vicki, Tosha and Brecken were probably the most nervous so we partnered them up with people who weren’t scared, or at least people who didn’t think they were. It was hilarious to watch and experience! Erin, for example wasn’t scared until it started and then screamed bloody murder the whole time. I wasn’t scared either, until I looked down and saw how high we were! Needless to say we all screamed our lungs out and had more fun than we ever thought humanly possible! And we rode it over and over and over! If you ever pass through Glenwood Springs on the I-70, I HIGHLY recommend a stop to ride up the Gondola and ride on the ARMSWING!!!! Worth every penny!
Erin and Vicki on one side and Tanya and Brecken on the other!
Laugh/Crying after they had their feet firm on the ground!
Tamara and Brecken on one side with Mindy and I on the other!
Just before the ride started Mindy told me she was terrified! She had been so brave the whole time but told me it was because she was trying to be brave for Brecken! By the time the day was over Mindy had conquered her fear and was video taping the ride with her phone while ON the ride! Hilarious!!!
Brecken, Me, Tam and Mindy! LOVE this picture of Brecken after the ride!
This is Tanya and Tosha! These two won the BEST facial expressions of the day! They were absolutely HILARIOUS!!!
After we lost our voices and tired ourselves out from screaming and laughing we headed back down the Gondola to our cars and headed back to Vail for Dinner. We parked at one end of the main “downtown” part of Vail and walked along the river and through town to find a place to eat! I can’t remember the name of the place we ate at. Despite it being quite tasty it was expensive and had small portions! Bummer cause I was STARVING!!!
Mindy with Tosha’s little guy Houston!
SO glad Tosha was able to come! Her life was pretty crazy that weekend and she almost didn’t come but we talked her into it!
Tosha, Yvette, Tamara, Me, Brecken, Erin, Neeley, Mindy (Sadly Tanya and Vicki had to head back to town after the adventure park)
One thing you may want to note if you ever come on this Girls Trip with us is that you should NEVER EVER fall asleep before everyone else and if you want to fall asleep you should without question go find a bed and close the door. The reason being that when we all get tired we get slap happy and then we laugh and EVERYTHING and ANYTHING and if you are one of the sleepers you will get many a funny pictures taken of you that may or may not someday show up on someone’s blog! It makes for many inside jokes so sorry if these don’t seem as funny to you as they do to all of us!
PRANK (or PRONK) Number 1: Tosha tried SOOOOOO hard to stay awake and would randomly sit up or open her eyes and contribute to the conversation only to lay back down and go straight back to sleep! This particular time was hysterical because she fell asleep sitting straight up and she doesn’t drink diet Coke! Actually, she doesn’t drink Soda at all! This one got us rolling straight off the bat!
PRANK/PRONK Number 2: Brecken has a reputation of always being the first one asleep! Poor girl tries so hard to stay awake but can never do it! Without fail she is out cold within minutes but still tries to be a part of things. This night she really really wanted to bake cookies from the dough she had made before coming up to Vail! She put them in the oven and while waiting for them to finish baking she fell asleep! Soooo, we got the biggest grouping of cookies and right when we were going to take a picture that looked like she was eating the cookie she woke up, pushed the cookie away and went right back to sleep! Once again, it put us in stitches! Love you Breck!
Erin trying with all her might to stay awake! The thing is that Erin is actually pretty safe when she falls asleep because its more fun to pull the pranks with her! When she’s alseep its just not the same!
You’d never know it by looking at them but Yvette and Tamara are both quite mischiveous little PRONKSTERS! Mindy, Neeley and I are a given but Yvette and Tam play the “silent but deadly” role in the PRONKING!!!
DAY 3-VAIL and the Games
On day three the 3 of us slept in due to staying up WAY too late talking! I think by the time I went to sleep the sun was actually coming up! YIKES!!! Everyone else headed into town and let us sleep. When we got up and got ready we did a little photo shoot with our “Charlies Angels” girls! (Since day one of being friends we’ve always taken pictures together in Charlie’s Angels poses!) We then headed into town to find everyone else. We had lunch, did a little shopping and watched some of the events! It was such a relaxing way to spend our last day together!
Toast to our YUMMY sandwhiches!
Mindy and William Tamara- my photography teacher!
Tam and I Mindy and Erin with their 8$ child size Chocolate Milkshakes! Neeley and Yvette!
Don’t know why but we thought it would be funny to take pictures of all of our feet! I couldn’t tell ya what foot belongs to who!
Photo Shoot! TOP ROW: Mindy, Yvette, Brecken Erin. BOTTOM ROW: Tamara, Me, Neeley, Tosha
Till next year my sweet Friends! I Love You!!!
Went to church on Sunday and was able to visit my old ward! It was really hard to be there and see all of my friends, my kids’ friends, and the people who have all meant so much to us for the past 9 years! Vicki and Debbie are sisters and we went through a lot together when Debbie and I served together in our callings! Debbie wasn’t able to come up to Vail with us so it was especially good to see her! Love these girls!!!
Lunch with Neels and Mind before heading to the airport!
Now, back to real life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
