This past weekend I put together a surprise trip for myself and Carrie, one of my best friends from elementary school to go and fly out and surprise another best friend, Kelsey, from elementary as a somewhat "bachelorette party" weekend. I have been emailing back and forth with Kelsey's fiance for the past couple of months and have been looking at hotels and trying to put together an itinerary. With my meeting going two weeks ago I didn't have a ton of time to really focus and think about how much FUN we were going to have - I just knew that everything was planned and we'd have a great time. Oh my gosh, let me tell you. I just LOVE how I can get together with best friends that haven't been all together for a while and have everything just fall right back where we left off. I just feel so comfortable around these 2 girls and it's like we never miss a beat even though we only get to see each other at MAX 3 times a year.
Anyways, Friday Carrie and I left Austin and landed in Phoenix at about 2pm. Kelsey's fiance picked us up from the airport and took us back to their house where we got settled, made the guest bed, hung out and planned our big surprise! Oh, and Carrie put on some perfume. (This will be important later.) Anyways, we decided to hide behind the kitchen island because Kels would come through the garage door, walk down the hallway and turn into the "grand room" facing the island perfectly. We thought we'd hear the garage door open but Kels was extremely stealth for some reason in her arrival to the house and we only heard the keys in the garage door. Carrie and I freaked out, ran to the island and ducked while Chris leaned awkwardly on the bar with a glass of water in his hand. (He was going to tap my head when Kels arrived for our sign.) So she walks through the door after we fratically duck behind the island, states that "It smells really nice in here, did you clean???" (carrie's perfume) then turned the corner and we jumped up and yelled "SURPRISE." The look on her face was priceless. We caught it on camera - oh wait, no we didn't :) Long story short, Chris made fun of me for explaining to him twice how to work the flip, only to misuse the Flip for the actual surprise. Haha.
Anyways, Kels dropped her bags, had a huge smile on her face and didn't really know what to say. When we were all standing around a little while later she explained it as "confusion." Carrie and I were VERY familiar and of course her house is VERY familiar but the two things put together were not familiar at all....it was a hard concept to grasp at the time.
So that night we went and got drinks and hung out and went and got dinner at this cute little restaurant where Kels and Chris like to go and then we went back to their house and watched home movies that Kels got for X-mas from her mom. They were sooo funny and so much fun to see - definitely kept us up laughing and remembering good times until about midnight!
The next morning we got up, went and got some breakfast at another CUTE place that Kels and Chris go to every Sunday morning, then showered and left for Scottsdale!!! I had booked us a room at the Westin Kierlands and we arrived to a beautiful resort with mountains all around, cactus (squarrel and cholla) and little bunnies hopping in the green grass. Seriously, there were little bunnies and I wanted to take them home with me.
Anyways, we checked in then headed out to the shops close by for some wedding attire shopping as our goal. Kelsey got her entire rehearsal dinner outfit (including an awesome "statement necklace") and belt. We had lunch at a cute little place there, shopped some more and I ended up buying some stuff that I probably did not need. Story of my life.
After shopping we headed back to the hotel, changed, got ready and took some classic self-timer shots before heading to the bar for pre-drink drinks. We got the best dirty martinis I think I've ever had at a bar called "The Rim" in the Westin. Then we took a shuttle to a restaurant called "Ra" for sushi and a giant fishbowl drink...mmmmm..... During dinner it started to POUR! Yes, POUR in the desert in Arizona. Apparently they've been having lots of rain lately, which is unheard of, but I didnt' expect the tsunami that hit us later that evening.
After dinner we hitched a cab to a club called "The Devil's Martini" where we met lots of interesting people (thanks to Carrie), danced the night away and made some really great memories. It's so funny because whenever Carrie drinks, or doesn't drink, she likes to meet new people. So I opened a bar tab and Carrie was the one running to get us refills. Every time she'd come back to the dancefloor she'd have met a new person. We never learned any of their names, just where they were from. When the night ended we had a ton of new "friends" including (but not limited to) Seattle, New York, Arizona, and Las Vegas. There was also a balding rugby player wearing a kilt that referred to himself as "The wall." Carrie thought it'd be a good idea to tell him that that was my nickname back in the soccer playing days...aparently "the wall" thought that meant we should be lifelong friends and wouldn't leave us alone. For some reason our theme song of the entire trip was "Imma Be" so near the end of the night we told Carrie to go request it from the DJ. Basically he just looked at her and said, "NO, I'm not playing that again" and continued to play "Pants on the Ground." We ended up heading back to the dance floor where we closed down the club. They turned the lights on, which REALLY confused us at the time, and told us to leave.
Back to the hotel we went, via cab in the pouring rain, and got to the hotel where we again decided to try out the self-timer and take tons of pictures. These self-timed pictures definitely look different from the ones we took before going out :)
Middle of the night (actually I think it was 6am) Kelsey got up to go to the bathroom. Somehow she got lost in our room (I give her credit, it was a suite) and ended up in the closet. She was banging around so much that it woke me up. I sat up in bed, saw her standing in the closet and then heard her exclaim, "I'm sooo confused. I really have to peeee." I got up & showed her where the bathroom was. Apparently at this time I fell back asleep for an amount of time that all of us are unsure of, but was woken up AGAIN by Kelsey coming in the side door of the bedroom, hitting the wall and saying, "I"M SOOOO CONFUSED." At this time I was pretty confused because I had JUST (again, time passed) shown her where the bathroom was. This time I got up, put my hands on her shoulders, turned on the bathroom light and pushed her towards the toilet. I waited for her outside of the door because I at this point had to go. She came out, I went in. I came out, she was sprawled on my pillow and my side of the bed. (Note: Carrie was in the other room on her own little bed.) So I tapped Kels on the head and told her to move over onto her side of the bed. She laid there and said, "But it's sooo cold over there." This will make sense later. I then fell asleep. The end.
We woke up the next morning and Carrie said, "Man, so when did Kelsey end up in my bed last night?" Kelsey and I were both adament that she had never been in Carrie's bed and that Carrie must have thought that she imagined her being in there before we all went to sleep when we were doing the self-timer pictures. Carrie SWORE that someone had been in her bed because she had kicked them when she got up to pee in the middle of the night. (Which it turns out that Carrie went to the front door and opened that thinking it was the bathroom.)
TURNS OUT that Kelsey left the closet on her first bathroom trip, walked into the bathroom and straight out the other door, got confused and realized she was really tired, laid down with Carrie and fell asleep, woke up when Carrie got back from the "bathroom", walked back into my/our room through the other door, hit the wall and was then led to the bathroom by me for the 2nd time. This also explains why her side of the bed was sooo cold - she hadn't been in it for probably an hour. :) So funny! It was like living in a real-life hangover movie where we were putting the bits and pieces back together through a fogged memory.
There are so many other memories from this weekend but it's kind of hard (and probably not appropriate) to share them all...I absolutely love my friends and miss having all of us in the same city. However, it definitely gives us an excuse to travel more and I can't wait to do it again!
A G/PG-rated picture post will follow.
Next Post: Charlie and his ability to eat an entire tree's worth of sticks :(
Our campsite!
The dogs chasing sticks in the water behind our campsite.
Charlie swimming! Doesn't quite have the doggie paddle down yet, more of a flailing motion :)
Charlie hiked all the way to the top of the "mountain" with G and Me.
The hiking trails...
Family pic halfway up. Someone needs to invest in "hipper" sunglasses....and it's not G.
Pretty Frio river. It was FREEZING though!
Handsome boy.
Charlie loved looking our the tent in the mornings.
Proud little longhorn stole my chair!
Charlie in between rainstorms...he figured out where the tent would zip :)
Finally out of the rain and in our new sleeping situation due to the leakage!
