Girls' Weekend of a different kind

This weekend was a girls' getaway for me, not the kind that I'm used to where I get away from the family with best girlfriends to escape all responsibility and connect with friends, usually with drinks involved. This weekend was a family girls' weekend, and just as lovely in different ways. Andie, Zoë and I went away with all of our Fiji besties - Tahli, Lainie, and Wendy. Our two (partial) families went out west to the Doubletree for a weekend of connecting, relaxing, eating, dancing, singing, water sliding, and playing. It was LOVELY. I write about it now, feeling a little bit sad, because it is over. Knowing it's over means that it is closer to when they are leaving for good. I keep trying to have a positive attitude about it all, trying to focus on the positive piece - "We feel sad because the friendships are so real. I should just feel grateful for those lifelong friendships." And....I do, most of the time, but sometimes the grief pops in a little bit too.

Most of the weekend is best told in pictures.....but a few highlights include-
- the girls swimming into the night through the glorious sunset both nights
- the girls dancing with reckless abandon for hours to the band, entertaining all that were there.
-amazing breakfast buffet meals
- yummy coconut crab
- sitting on the veranda with Wendy to take a respite from the sun, laughing over a bottle of bubbles and hours of good conversation
-BIG BULA waterpark - the kids had an ABSOLUTE blast!
-all of us staying up too late not able to stop talking once we got into our beds
- Andie getting on stage, TWO different times. The first time she sang a song she made up on the spot. It was brilliant. The next time she sang Lainie's goodbye song. When she got on stage she was like a little grownup. She said, "Do any of you have a best friend? Well, I do and she's here tonight. Soon she is moving, so I wrote her this song. So, ya.... I'm just gonna sing it now...." and then she belted it out with such confidence, such passion..... I got the chills.

So ya....here's the pics.