Girls' Day Out!!

Saturday morning I headed to Concord Mills with some friends- Jackie, Cori, Jess (and she brought along a friend, too), for a Girls' Day of shopping, lunch, and hanging out! I didnt know till last minute that I would have to be the one driving all the way down to the mall, so I was really nervous. Yeah, its embarrasing, but I've never driven to Charlotte by myself! Of course the directional thing, plus big cities and lots of traffic make me nervous. But I looked up and printed out directions and went over them with Arnold before I left, so I was pretty confident. Plus I had friends right there with me to help me ;) Its funny, because on my list of "30 things I want to do before Im 30", this was one of them (drive somewhere like that by myself) so I can now mark that off the list! ;) (hey, dont judge-- Im proud!) I was a little offended when Arnold started praying for safety before I left though! Haha, just picking, it was sweet :)

Anyway, I picked up Jackie and Cori first, then met Jess and her friend in a parking lot, and we left from there. Jackie was holding onto my directions and read off to me when I should get onto another road, so I didnt really have to think about it at all! (thanks Jackie!) Who needs a Tom Tom when you have a Jack Jackie?! (a joke Jess made!) I made the girls listen to my Glee cds when we were on the way down there, hehe. We mostly ended up doing a lot of talking and laughing though.. its always so fun to hang out with friends, especially after a stressful week! We ended up getting down there without any trouble, it was soo much easier than I had expected. And as soon as we got there, I called Arnold to brag but of course he didnt answer! We got down there just before 11 and hit the bathrooms before we started our shopping!!

I dont remember the order of the stores we went to, but we went to alot! A stop thats a must is the Books a Million. I could stand and browse in there forever! There was soo many childrens' clearance books, but I couldnt decide what i wanted so I left without buying anything. Right after that we stopped for a lunch break. I dont know what it is about malls, but anytime I go I have to stop by Sbarros and get some of that yummy, greasy pizza, and dip it into ranch dressing. It is sooo good. I know how bad it is, but its fine to indulge once in awhile, right?! After lunch we went to the Gymboree outlet. Now that store can get me into some serious trouble! They had their OWL stuff marked down even further than last time I went to an outlet. I wont lie, I was tempted to scoop it all up and buy it, but I knew Rachel didnt need any more clothes! So we moved on, and I was proud of myself again ;) We went to several more kids' clothing stores, and I didnt buy anything until we got to Crazy 8 (never been into an actual Crazy 8 store) and got Caleb some pjs and Brooke some panties because they were having such a good sale! There was a certain pair I wanted for Brooke and I had Cori digging deep into the pile to find them (that was a sight!) but we never did find them :( Oh well. Later we passed the FYE store, and I saw a Sheldon cutout in the window and Cori and I started running towards it (we loove Sheldon ;) And we made the girls take a picture of us with him. I actually turned the big cutout around so it was facing inside the store.. Im glad none of the workers came over and asked me what I was doing! And then we saw Edward and Jacob cutouts, so we had to get pics with them, too! I saw people looking at us strangely, but who cares?! :)

We eventually came to the candy store, and I went in and got 2 blueberry rock candy sticks (takes me back to my childhood!) and a sweettart sucker. Im glad Arnold wasnt with me, because he usually buys the jellybeans by the lbs and we end up leaving with like a $15 bag of candy (true story!) By then I had only spent $15 on stuff, so I was happy with that. I had taken a lot of cash with me but just couldnt find anything I wanted to buy that badly. Kindof sad that I went all the way to Charlotte and only bought a few things.. but not really because the more important thing to me was time spent with friends :) The trip was totally worth it to me! Anyway, eventually we sat down to rest for awhile on a bench, and we were sitting right in front of an Orange Julius. After awhile it was calling out to me, so I went over and ordered a chocolate milkshake. Yummmm. By then it was getting close to the time we were supposed to leave the mall, so we started making our way back to where we came in. On the way we passed the Christian Book Outlet though, so we stopped in real quick. I found "Power of a Praying Wife" on sale, which Ive actually been wanting to read for a long time! So i got that, along with a new bookmark and a greeting card for a friend of mine.

Around 3pm we finally got around to leaving. We had taken pictures off and on throughout the day, but hadnt gotten a group picture. We needed someone to take it for us though. So here comes an older lady walking around the corner with her husband, and Jess yells out "MAM, can you take our picture for us?!" She was nice about it, and took it for us. We thanked her and she went on her way. Jess was being silly and said. Aww, we didnt even know her name. She looks like a Barbara to me. Dont you think?! And she yelled out THANKS BARBARA! (even though she was pretty much out the door by then and didnt hear) And I said Geez, what if she would have really turned around because that was her name? I would have busted out laughing!!! See, jess says I havent changed at all since highschool, but I dont think she has either!!! ;) Then we headed out to the van, and at first we couldnt find it. Jess said "Just look for the van with the wagon-shaped dent in it!' (yall probably remember my story awhile back about me accidentally backing over the kids' wagon one day) I dont know why I take that kind of abuse from people! haha! ;) But we eventually found it and got back on the road. We ended up getting back home really quickly actually.. probably faster than on the way down (Arnold swears its because I was speeding on the way! who knows ;) But we made it back, and we had an awesome time. I cant wait to do it again!! :)

Jackie and I at lunch

Cori and I. Notice the Sbarros in the pic?!
Cori and I with Sheldon!!! Bazinga punk!! :)

MMMMM, Me and my Man Jacob ;)

Driving down I-85. Yeah I made Jackie take this. And yeah I slowed down and just looked over really quickly. I WAS paying attention to the road.. most of the time!!! ;)