Shopped till we dropped

To sum up this past weekend in one word would be SPECTACULAR. There was not one moment that was bad (ok, maybe the rainy and cloudy weather sucked hey Kristen). I'm pretty sure that if you looked up spectacular in the dictionary, it would read as the following:

Spectacular (spec·tac·u·lar): To spend a weekend with wonderful girlfriends shopping, drinking Starbucks, finding great deals and meaningful conversation.

This particular weekend of goodness began promptly at 6pm when I walked out of work to pick up Aimee & Hayley and Kristen. We made a brief pit stop at McDonalds for some supper before heading out to Rosenort for the night. And just as a little side note, in case you think a large drink and fries is the one you get with a meal, it's not. In fact, it's the medium fries and drink you get. I learned that the hard way and ended up having A LOT of coke to finish - not entirely a bad thing, but nonetheless not what I was expecting.

Now, one might be thinking, why stay in Rosenort for the night??? The first reason was that's where we needed to drop some children off and secondly, there are some mighty fine people in that town. Rather then spending money on a hotel that none of us could really afford, we shacked up with some parents instead. I had the wonderful privilege of getting to meet Sabrina's mom and dad-in-law. They were absolutely delightful right from the moment I walked in their door. It felt as though I had known them forever. What warm and inviting people. They kindly let me spend the night with Sabrina and Gavin at their place and we had a great time chatting, playing cards and eating their yummy snacks. Plus, they got up extra early just to make us pancakes, bacon and strong coffee. It really doesn't get much better than that (and apparently Sabrina and I aren't hard to please :).

At 8:10am, Kristen rolled up in the van her parent's graciously allowed us to borrow and we began our day trip to Grand Forks.

Once we got to Grand Forks, we hit the ground running. Target, Gordmans, Old Navy, Kohl's and the mall provided us with great deals and fun new clothes.

Now this is the way coffee was intended to be drunk.

Hayley was such a little trooper. At only 6 weeks old she proved to be quite the little shopper (we like to train them early). And even when she did get a little tired or hungry, how can you be annoyed with a face like hers??


The purpose of this trip was to celebrate Kristen's birthday. Her wish was to go shopping and we thought Polo Park or St. Vital just wasn't good enough. Grand Forks would be much better. For supper, we let the birthday girl pick and she picked good. We hit up Space Aliens. Don't let the name deceive you because their fries are awesome. The best part was definitely all the dipping sauces you could get with your fries. We definitely indulged.

This was a common sight throughout the day. We tend to laugh an awful lot with each other. Just think happy thoughts, right guys!

As the rain started to come down hard we made our trek home. When we got to the border, the guard sent us inside to pay our duty. However, once we got in, the kind man (who also happened to be good looking) let all of us off the hook without having to pay, except Kristen. Kristen spent by far the most money, but he only made her pay taxes rather than the duty. That made my day! I think that having a baby sleeping in the van, 5 good looking girls walking into the building, a 30th birthday girl and crossing at 10:30 pm definitely helped in his decision to let us all go without paying. We literally shopped until we dropped. I fell into bed at 1:15am, exhausted, yet overjoyed after a most wonderful day.

Thanks ladies for the fun time. Kristen, thanks for having a birthday and giving us a reason to go shop for a day.