my big bad birthday & bachelorette bash

Turn your speakers up folks. What can I say about this past weekend that can’t be seen in the lickle photo gallery above? Friends? Check! Sun, sand and surf? This is Florida. Fun times? For certain!

I was lucky enough to finagle myself into a three day weekend from work, so my celebration started on Thursday. One of my most awesome co-workers popped into the office on her day off to surprise me with a white cake. Mmm. It was mighty thoughtful of her and totally made my pre-celebration all the better.

Fast forward to Friday, my birthday!!! Kristen and Annette had made it in the previous night so we were only waiting on Latofia to make it in from Bama. We spent the morning killing time with the likes of brow threading, shoe shopping, laser hair removal (uh yeah – for my chin) and you get the picture. I had a few calls and appointments I had to attend to and by the time Latofia made it in I was out for a moment. My mom managed to entertain the women with some of her infamous quotes.

That night we dined at Cheap in SoHo, breezed through Hyde Park Cafe and unexpectedly got in a little live hip-hop at the Orpheum. My first night out at Cheap was superb. I nabbed some of the tapas, sipped sangria and feasted on a delectable tres leches cake for dessert. Felica gifted me with pretty flowers and Chinyere was awesome enough to gift me with beautiful blue Nigerian style lace material. The presence and good company of my friends was the greatest present of all. Glad my bro and Marci made it. Sorry that my boo couldn’t have made it sooner, but we’ve got the rest of our lives to hang.

Cut to Saturday morning. Woke up and headed out for mani/pedi time after a big breakfast from the mothership. From there we jetted over to Olga’s to pick up my wedding gown and had lunch at the Queen of Sheba, all in South Tampa. I suspect that the Queen of Sheba wasn’t as big of a hit with my friends as I would have liked for it to have been, but a woman can’t win them all. Another mall stop before the core four finally made it back to the house to prep for O-Town. We’d be joined by Latasha and Chinyere later that night for dinner and dancing at Bob Marley’s at Universal City Walk.

For Sunday’s finale we started with breakfast at First Watch and proceeded to the outlets. I discovered Marni and quickly had to get out that store before retail stupidity kicked in. From the outlets it was back to the west side of I-4 and over to Siesta Key Beach for sunset and dinner.

This morning I was greeted with complete exhaustion causing me to ponder whether I’m too old for all this fun.

Nope. Don’t think so.

P.S. Nothing was too wild either. I did see a lot of brides-to-be out on the streets Saturday and Friday nights. How did I know this? They had the blow-up man and tiny penis ornaments in their hair and everywhere. Not my style!