I'd Tell This Story 100 Times

This story's been told... more than once. Girl comes of age, and chooses and enrolls in college; girl meets best friends who, four-years later, graduate and go their separate ways. Girl makes pact with said friends to gather annually and has just returned from year eight of the ongoing agreement. (ewh - we haven't, uh, really been out of school for eight years... we meet twice some years, yup - sure do!)

Yes, these scenes may look vaguely familiar... the faces sure do remain the same... but suffice it to say, it doesn't bother us in the slightest.

And while you might have your own very similar story (which I'd love to hear), there are a few things from our recent trip that you can't miss.

The Donut Hole. Sure, they serve more than donuts, but all you need are the donuts. Somehow we neglected to visit this watering hole on our last trip so I was up bright and early the first morning to avenge that loss.

Lucky for us, our Detroit resident put us all to shame (darn those Southern roots) and brought our hostess these lovely Sander's chocolates. And even luckier for us is that our hostess shared them with the rest of us.

Am I the only one who can barely drag herself out of bed on most weekday mornings? However, for whatever reason, when I flip the vacation switch, I can't sleep past 6:30am and am happily up and at 'em. This weekend was no different - I took walks to the beach each morning long before the rest of the house was awake and enjoyed the quiet of a normally bustling area.

These are the girls. THE girls who've seen me through just about everything since the day we met and donned the old gold and black. Not pictured (not invited, is more like it!) are two sweet babies (hi Harrison and Natalie!) and one on the way!

You guessed it! We don't pass up many chances to throw a shower. We took the opportunity to celebrate Baby (Boy Perkins) at the Beach with a surprise mini-shower for Missy and Stephen. We did our best to shower our soon-to-be favorite Perkins in some Deacon, smocked and even international garb. All in the name of getting the little guy's mom used to all-things blue!

I was happy to man the kitchen for our traditional dinner in (truth be told, I think we'd rather stay in and cook then hit a beach-front joint). We enjoyed some peel-and-eat shrimp, a yummy green salad, and some delicious roasted and herbed potatoes. With perfect timing (ha!), we decided to take our requisite timer-picture after dinner and I'm fairly certain if you look close enough (thanks, Katie, for the picture!), I have some left-over rosemary or thyme in my teeth! Nothing new there... it wouldn't be a weekend with Kara if I hadn't worried about having food in my teeth.

Hopefully while you were examining the picture above, you weren't blinded by the shine off my forehead (and nose and chin...). Thank goodness for eight-plus years with these ladies, they are used to my lack of tact (and make-up and style, for that matter). And speaking of that, I couldn't be more thankful for these girls.