Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

**bear with me, I didn't realize my photos were aligning right at the beginning of this post and I'm too lazy to change them all! Just try to ignore it:)**

I just got back from an amazing weekend away in celebration of my BFF Sarah's Bachelorette Bash and lingerie shower. As we told her multiple times throughout the weekend, thanks for getting married so we could have an excuse for a fun girls trip!

As I know I have mentioned in this blog before, I have the great, great privilege and honor of being Sarah's Matron of Honor (I dislike that title but then I remember that it comes along with being Aaron's wife and all of a sudden, I'm totally okay with it). I wanted this weekend to be totally relaxing and perfect for Sarah and with the help of a fabulous group of bridesmaids, I think we pulled it off. After a few months of planning, I left early on Friday morning for LAX. I flew from LAX to Chicago Midway and met up with Alicia, one of Sarah's childhood friends who was coming in from San Diego. Alicia and I probably haven't seen each other since our junior year of college (she went to college in SD as well, but not UCSD) so it was great to see her at the gate. From Chicago, we flew into Dulles and then rented a car. And not just any car. I had made a reservation for a "full sized" car because I was hoping that we could get something so that all 6 of us could plan to ride in one car all weekend. As Alicia and I got outside to pick from a row of cars, we tried to ignore the white Mercury Grand Marquis--you know the one. It kind of looks like a limo but also kind of looks like a police car? After a little bit of assessment of our other options, we finally decided to surrender to its awesomeness and load our stuff into the beast (with leather seats, I might add). Alicia quickly figured out that it was missing keys and so she ran back to the counter. I expected to see her come walking out with the keys but the next thing I know, there is a baby blue version coming straight at me. Sure enough, Alicia was able to secure us an even more ridiculous looking car. I texted Sarah a picture with the caption "only high class for your weekend". Great start to a great weekend, indeed.

As we drove towards the cabin, I immediately fell in love with the Virginia countryside. Everything was so green and so full and lush. The sun was shining and the humidity wasn't killer--it was absolutely an idyllic day. When we arrived at the cabin, we pretty much felt like we had hit the jackpot. I found this gem online and the pictures really didn't do it justice. For one, it was set back on a huge piece of land all by itself. The inside was roomy and there was a second cabin up to the left that housed the exercise pool/sauna. Score, score, score.



A little after we arrived, Jen, Ryan's sister and Sarah's soon to be sister in law came in from Pennsylvania. We all got in the car and headed to the nearest adorable town of Middlesburg to get some snacks. By the time we came home, Sarah and Liz had arrived from DC and so we spent a few hours sitting on the porch with some snacks and champagne.

We decided that we should probably have some dinner so we piled into the Grand Marquis (GM from here on?) and headed into town to a pizza place we had read about. We were quite surprised to learn that everything shut down pretty early in town so we headed back to the cabin and had our pizza at the house. We spent the rest of the night chatting before hitting the hay.

On Saturday morning, Ryan's brother's wife and Sarah's soon to be sister in law #2, Kim arrived from Maryland. We decided to head back into Middleburg for breakfast at The Upper Crust bakery which came highly recommended.



The patio in the back was the perfect place to enjoy our bakery goodies.

After breakfast, we went to our first winery, Swedenburg. We tasted 6 different wines and then decided to share a bottle of rose out in the grass. It was so pretty out--warm and humid but with a life-saving breeze.




Next, we hit up the second winery, Chrysalis. This one was much bigger with more picnic areas and tasting spots.







We decided we needed a little break so we headed back to Middleburg for some shopping. Mostly at an adorable little shop called Lou Lou. I could have stayed in there for hours and bought every single thing in that store.



We decided to have a little fun with some headbands in the store.

Only the bride left with a white headband though:)

We decided to round out the wine tasting with one more stop.



We actually tasted on this back patio. Too cute, right?

Since we had dinner reservations at 7pm in Upperville, we decided to get a few more snacks and head back to the cabin to rest for a bit. We ended up eating and playing a game that Jen had arranged...Jen had asked Ryan some questions and Sarah had to guess the answers. Sort of Newlywed-game ish. She did great and it was really fun to learn more about Ryan and Sarah and the nitty gritties of their relationship.
I was so so glad that Alicia decided to take the camera and take pictures while we were chatting!

This seemed like an appropriate bottle to buy at the second winery.

Alicia took these pictures of the inside of the cabin (which isn't even the half of it):



But the real great pics are of the outside. The cabins are on SO much land. You should know that the owners (who are really sweet people) are selling it! Look into it (and let us visit)!!!






As I mentioned, we had dinner reservations at a place called Hunter's Head Tavern in Upperville. The food was excellent and we had a great time there.

After dinner, we headed back to the cabin for Sarah's lingerie shower. I didn't take any pictures of that--I guess we were having too much fun:)

The next morning, we cleaned up the cabin and packed up the cars. We took a few more pictures before heading out for some lunch (back to The Upper Crust!)

Sarah and Jen

Sarah and Liz

Sarah and Alicia

And finally, me and the beautiful bride-to-be!

I bet all of us barely made it through Monday. I know there were multiple times today that I found myself daydreaming about the cabin and the fun girl time. What's the craziest is that the next time we're all together, Sarah will be getting married! So exciting!

As fun as it was to go away, there's nothing better than coming home to Aaron. It was a good weekend for me to go since he has his first final tomorrow afternoon. His second and final, final will be next Tuesday so please say a little prayer for him! Hope y'all had a great weekend.

A very special HAPPIEST BIRTHDAY to our sweet friend, Erin! We love you!

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Mark 12:30