Ladies Weekend, Winter Edition

Life gets busy as we all get older, and spending times with friends sometimes requires extensive planning and forethought.  It's just a reality, one that we have to get used to.  No longer are the days that we could hang out all day, on a whim.  Where a trip to the mall turned into lunch, a movie, some coffee or ice cream, and hanging out at someone's house.  When we'd spend every night of the summer together, doing something or other to entertain ourselves.  Those were the good ol' days for sure.

Circa 1999.  Don't hate me, friends, for sharing.  :) 

Okaaaaay, they weren't good because of our fashion or hair styles (clearly).  I had a hard time finding a really great one of us from the "good ol' days" - most of my photos are packed away somewhere.  Plus I'm not convinced we'd think any of them are "great" now anyways.  But those days really were good because we got to spend most of our free time with friends.  I miss that.

But wait.  This is WAY better, right?  I'd say we've aged well. 

And so, with our new reality here as adults, we've come up with a standing ladies weekend every July.  We all plan around it so that we will in fact all be able to get together and have a fun, work-free, kid-free, husband-free weekend.  And the first two years were seriously awesome, even though we weren't quite 100% there.  Next time hopefully?

This year we apparently could not wait for July, and one of the bunch thought it'd be a great idea to go visit Betsy in Chicago in January.  Done!  We decided on a weekend, jumped at a sale with Spirit Airlines and we were set.  The holidays came and went so quickly, and before we knew it we were up at 4am leaving for the airport for the start of Ladies Weekend, Winter Edition. 

This was the first trip that we had all taken together that required flying.  Because of Spirit's crazy fees, we shared suitcases and did not select our own seats, and got to the gate right in the nick of time.  But a quick hop, skip, and a jump, and we were in Chicago with the sunrise.

It was such a great weekend.  That first day we were belly-laughing by breakfast.  Laughter is something I always look forward to with this group of ladies, and I was not disappointed.  Kate brought her shellac kit and gave us all beautiful manicures, we had a mid-afternoon meal and indulged in some wine, wandered the mall, made a liquor run for the rest of the weekend, and stuffed ourselves with popcorn at the movies.  Not too shabby.

We stayed the second night downtown Chicago, in the most beautiful condo I've ever seen.  Many thanks to a Betsy's dad's neighbor to allow us to stay there.  Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Michigan and Millenium Park, flat screen TVs in every room (and bathroom), a rooftop terrace that could take your breath away, a two-story waterfall...  Even the couch was flipping cool.

One of our friends somehow forgot about this Chicago trip and booked her family vacation at the same time.  Silly, silly her, though by the looks of it she had a fabulous trip herself.  Awhile ago I had come up with the idea to use a photo of her for our group shots (thinking it'd be easier than photoshopping in).  What we failed to realize is that we couldn't print her head big enough to be real size, and the print quality wasn't ideal.  Nonetheless, this all contributed to it being even more hilarious. 

Seriously, tears were flowing.

And I had the most fun running around the condo after the girls and Mandy's head, taking pictures. 

After photo fun, we braved the cold and headed to Millenium Park for some more photos, including our classic poses. 

The last one we took before there was complaining by a select lovely few is my favorite of the entire weekend.  Mandy-head didn't brave the cold with us, so I did end up doing some amateur photoshopping here.  It almost works, right?

We dined at Chicago's original Italian restaurant, had some drinks at a nearby bar, and ended the evening lounging and talking and reminiscing until we grew sleepy.  I slept in one of the bedrooms with floor to ceiling windows and was pleasantly woken by a beautiful sunrise from the horizon over the lake.  There were shades (electronic, the fancy kind) but we didn't think of them when going to bed in the dark. 

I could have gotten used to living in that place, for sure.  If only my husband would go ahead and win the lottery already.

Our final day together we had breakfast before Kate had to hit the road, then got ready in luxury (the computerized shower was amazing), and hopped in a couple cabs to the Planetarium.  We watched a presentation in the IMAX, stumbled upon a talk by an astronomer that we all found to be quite attractive, even if a bit geeky, learned that our universe is 13.7 years old and that the big bang was not really a bang, and after our visit found the sweetest old man that was willing to cram all 6 of us into his taxi to get home.   

Before we knew it, we were packed up and on the Blue Line with the rest of Chicago rush hour headed to the airport. 

It was so nice to have almost 3 full days together, and yet the time flew by so quickly.  Already looking forward to July.

I think the world of you ladies!