Girls' Road Trip!

When my friends showed up at my front door to kidnap me for a surprise birthday road trip...I had no idea where we were headed!  For a while, they had me believing we were headed for Mexico! I was so confused.

Here I am with a few of my friends before we hit the road.  Our final destination ended up being a lovely condo in Scottsdale. They had me faked out really good, and the surprises were still coming.  When we walked into the dark condo, they flipped the lights on and everything was decorated with balloons, and streamers.  Just then, out of nowhere, I caught a glimpse of our good friend Gina who lives in Texas!!!!  My friend Dawn found a way to fly Gina all the way out to Arizona for our special girls' weekend!  I was giddy with excitement!

Next, they told me to change my clothes for a night out on the town! Here we all are before the celebrating began.

The girls took me to a restaurant called "Cadillac Ranch" for dinner.  I had never been there before, and my friends had HUGE smiles on their faces when we arrived. I couldn't figure out what was so funny, but it didn't take long to see why they were laughing.

When we arrived at our table, we had a front row seat to THIS!!! A mechanical bull.  We cracked up as we watched people try to ride it throughout the evening....

And then....it was our turn!  That's right.  We threw caution to the wind, swallowed our pride, and every single one of us rode the bull! It was so funny that I nearly peed my pants! A bunch of mamas in our 30's and 40's conquered this mechanical beast for an 8 second ride! I almost died laughing!!! Not only did we ride the bull, but we also lived to tell about it.  The wipe outs were as funny as the bull rides! We've got it all archived on video so we can show it to future generations.

Here we are standing a little taller after crossing bull riding off of the bucket list. It was EPIC!! In fact, our bull ride was legendary.  Every time we tell the story it gets better and better! I still can't believe we did it. LOL!!!


After stopping for ice cream, we went back to the condo for a night of reliving our adventure and catching up with each other.  The next morning,  we geared up for a full day of bargain shopping. I can't ever remember having such a fun day spent with friends!  By dinner time we were totally drained.  We took our loot back to the condo, changed into our comfy clothes and spent the whole evening eating and chatting.  We had delicious Taco Soup for dinner, and my friend Missy made a heavenly Peppermint Cheesecake for dessert.  It was out of this world!

We stayed up until 3 am talking and laughing like school girls at a giant slumber party! It was such a sweet time of fellowship.

I am so blessed to call these ladies my friends.  They have been there to support me through some of my happiest moments and darkest days, and I can't imagine my life without them.  They spent months secretly organizing this very special weekend for me, and it was absolutely perfect! Every detail was lovingly thought of, and each of my friends made sacrifices to make this trip extra- special. Not only did these girls do a ton of  planning, but each of our husbands stayed back at home and took care of our kids. (All 23 of them!) They held down the home front so that we could have a fabulous weekend away. 3 cheers for the husbands!

As if all of this wasn't amazing enough,  God had one very special surprise left for me.  On Sunday morning, after only three hours of sleep, my cell phone rang....

To Be Continued!!!!