A Wedding Roadtrip

This was Sara and Chad's wedding weekend. Cory had finals on Friday afternoon, so he wasn't going to be able to make the trip down to Orlando/Tampa for the wedding and reception. I was dreading making that drive on my own. After talking with Lara, we decided to make a girl's weekend out of it. Best. Decision. Ever.

I was super pumped about our plans (it's been way too long since Lara and I got up to our usual hi-jinks). We had a whole day of "big city" shopping planned. IKEA, Anthropologie, H&M...basically everything amazing. When I told Cory our plans he said, "That literally sounds like a nightmare I once had." To each his own, I suppose.

Anyway, we left Friday afternoon, and our first stop was the Orlando temple for their sealing. The Orlando temple is so brightly lit at night--its this huge gleaming beacon. Sooo pretty.

After the sealing we headed over to a highly recommended Mom & Pop restaurant down the street called Yellow Dog Eats. Everyone I've ever talked to about it raves and raves, so we finally gave it a shot. It was SOO good. It's definitely my new go to spot for after the temple sustenance. 

I ordered The Roofus (A vertiable mountain of pulled pork, brie, and raspberry sauce) and Lara ordered the Holy Crap sandwich (avocado, turkey, thick crispy bacon, and something else that is amazing).  We switched halfway through, so we each got to try two things, which is basically the premise of our entire friendship. Its a beautiful thing.

Kristen told us about this mystery 4 star hotel deal on Hotwire (they don't let you see the name of the hotel before you book), and I must say, it really worked out for us. After booking our deal we found out we'd be staying at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel and Convention Center, for less than 1/2 of the usual price. I don't think I've ever been in such a swanky, gigantic hotel before.  They had three swimming pools! When is that even necessary?? Also, they made you pay for parking, which sucks. But even with that, it was still a better deal than any other hotel, so we'll call it even.

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning because we had to get our shopping on. As my brother-in-law Juan would say, "Women be shopping!"

These are our game faces:

We didn't really go crazy and buy a ton of stuff. A lot of the places we were content to just look at pretty things and hold them close to our bodies. After an intense day of shopping, here are two of my favorite finds:

They just make me so happy. 

Our last stop on the consumer driven day o' fun was Cheesecake Factory. Neither of us had ever been before, and I must say, it was delicious (and the lunch portions are HUGE. Do dinner size portions come out to you in giant metal tubs? I just don't understand how they could physically be any bigger).

 We ate maybe a fourth of the food they put in front of us and could barely move our bodies out of the place. We were seriously considering asking for some kind of trolley service. They should look into that. Anyway, we dug deep and found the strength to walk our stuffed bellies to the car and began the journey to Odessa for the wedding reception. (Pictures of that to come soon).

We had to leave the wedding reception early to make it home before 1:00 AM. We both came home completely exhausted (and the later it got, the weirder things got in the car. I don't even remember half the trip home), but it was such a fun girl's get-a-way. Also, it should be noted, I can't count the number of times we heard that "So Call Me Baby" song on the radio. And strangely, it got better every time.