Juder Girl's Weekend * Winter 2009

As you may recall, every six months I get together with three of my close grade school friends for a girl's weekend away. This past summer's adventure was chronicled in this post. This time Dria, Gina, Christy and I headed up to The Dells for our weekend of fun. So, here we go:

Friday evening:

I picked Christy up from the train station and we headed out to Dria's house. Once we arrived, we got a tour of her relatively new house and learned some interesting news! Dria and her husband, Chris are expecting their first bundle of joy in August! YAY! Congrats, guys.

After we celebrated the news a little bit more, we packed up the car and began our drive. The drive up is always a huge part of the trip since we do our initial catch-up and necessary girl talk. A quick stop for dinner at Noodles and we finished the last chunk of our trip in good time.

The condo we stayed at belongs to the parents of a very good friend of mine. It's beautiful. We were definitely not roughing it! 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, full kitchen, living room ~ all beautifully furnished. The condo building also has a pool and hot tub which we took advantage of later in the weekend.

All three of us were pretty tired from a long week and the drive up. We hit the hay before midnight to prep for the next day's events.

Saturday:

Although it was a day off, I somehow managed to wake up at 6:00 ready to go. So, I had a few conversations with my internal clock and hit the metaphysical snooze button. Magically, I was able to go back to sleep for a little while.

We got ready and headed to BJ's Restaurant for a hearty breakfast. Good food for cheap prices! Gina timed it perfectly, arriving into town just as we were heading out of the restaurant. Once she settled her things in the condo, we headed out to the Tanger Outlets Center for a bit of shopping. I found a bunch of cute things for great prices.

I must say, stripes are all the rage this spring! I have never seen so many displays, mannequins or shelves filled with striped wares! Wowza! Here are a few pics from the shopping adventure. A couple of stores we visited, some desired buys and general store fun!

Christy doubling up the scarf fun!

Stripes!!!

One of our stops. I wasn't impressed.

More stripes!

This was my favorite stop! I found some really nice deals...
okay, that's a lie. We didn't stop there BUT some of the things in the front window weren't terrible...

Gina found a few striped items...imagine that!

And, oh how she admires them!

Thank goodness! I was fresh out of these. I stocked up while I could.*

Seriously...now it's getting out of control! They are everywhere!

Christy ♥s shopping for clothes!

A quick lunch at Culver's and we were off to the movies! We decided, at Gina's suggestion to see Slumdog Millionaire. THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME. I loved it. It was such an interesting premise for a movie. I am always amazed when an idea is so different but makes such sense. The actors were fantastic. I may have even shed a teensy tear at the end. I would definitely recommend this movie without reservations. It keeps you drawn in the storyline and characters throughout the entirety of the film.

We decided to head out to dinner after a little stop at the condo. We tried Ginza of Tokyo Hibachi Grill. We sat with four other people for the dinner. I have always loved hibachi grills. They are entertaining to me.

Dria and Christy posing for the camera

Gina perusing the menu options

Delicious food cooked right in front of us!

However, what overshadowed the main grill entertainment was the table of drunk couples who arrived after our main course and sat across from us (not pictured above). They were obnoxious and completely interesting to observe. One guy was doing shots of sake in between speaking for his girlfriend. Perhaps she was a bit too wasted to speak for herself or didn't have the ability to make decisions for herself. In some cases, this doesn't necessarily bother me...however, this guy was making a show about it.

Christy samples the green tea ice cream

Gina, Dria, Me and Christy

I digress, the dinner was fun, loaded with great conversation and many laughs. At the end of the meal, the girls were crafty and even got the waitstaff to bring out a little dish of ice cream with a candle and paper umbrella for my upcoming birthday!


Apparently I was a bit surprised...look how red my face got while they were singing "Happy Birthday"!

We headed back to the condo for a little magazine reading, Apples to Apples, hot tubbing, chatting and so on.

Sunday:

We did not rush out in the morning. We took our time, ate a bagel breakfast, watched Once and then headed on our merry way. We finished the second half of the outlet and stopped for lunch at Uno's Pizzeria. MMMMMMMM.....love it.

We finished our day off with a little laundry, TLC shows and teensy naps. Once we cleaned, we were out the door around 3:00ish. It was a great weekend with some of my oldest friends! Thanks, ladies! I'm looking forward to the next weekend away...with warmer weather!

And I promise to get some of those old school pics up on facebook soon!

*I did not buy these. Imagine how confused/concerned the sales clerk was as I took out my camera to snap a pic for blog purposes only!