i wanna soak up the sun

when i think vacation, i'm talking over the top, relaxing vacation, my mind automatically goes to the beach. you would not be a product of my parents if you did not love the beach as 99% of our family vacations each summer were to the beautiful gulf coast.

well, my sweet friend heather came to visit for a month (she's serving in nigeria, check out her blog) and she wanted to take a girls vacation to the beach. so we got 6other friends on board and began searching for a place. unless you've been living under a rock you're aware of the little thing called the BP oil spill which almost kept us from soaking up the sun & the goodness of girl time. the only change we made to our trip was the location: we had a place booked in orange beach but due to greater amount of oil sightings, we switched to destin.

this trip was absolutely, mind-blowing, refreshing! 4 days w/ 7 incredible women & 1 adorable baby couldn't have been any better. not only were the beaches and water still the same gorgeous gulf coast as we've all fallen in love with but lots of time and genuine conversation w/ my dear friend leslie & her handsome luke (they previously made a blog appearance here), joyful, deep, & even funny, superficial conversations with all the girls, and just doing all that we wanted on our own schedule made for one excellent getaway.

here are a few pics from the trip:

me and jesse (i got her hooked on kashi toasted berry crumble & we're pseudo-texans...jesse and her husband michael lived in the dallas area for several yrs so i saw them lots during my 2yrs in austin)

me, leslie, and sweet luke, my roomies for the week...eternally grateful for our conversations and friendship. (let's just say we had some good talks while falling asleep each night)heather and i (i'm super excited about her 2nd yr in nigeria)