Good Friend, Good Weekend

One of my absolute favorite people came into town this past weekend for some much needed friend time. I don't really have the energy to go through everything we did, but I'll hit the highlights. Regardless of the rain, Katie and I still had a great time and I always enjoy conversation with her.

So, our weekend highlights included:

• Rented Slumdog Millionaire. AMAZING movie.
  
• Shopping spree at Ann Taylor Loft Outlet. I always spend far too much money when I'm shopping with her. And typically it ends up being at Ann Taylor Loft. And this time, it started POURING rain right after we walked in, so we figured we might as well hang out for a while in the store. Bad move :)
• DisneyQuest. It was raining on Friday night still and I had free tickets to DisneyQuest so Katie, Ryan, and I hit up DisneyQuest. The pirate game was really fun!!
• BEACH!!! We took a chance and headed towards the Gulf on Saturday for some beach time. It rained on the way there and on the way home, but not while we were at the beach for about 3 1/2 hours. It was perfect. We went to Caladesi Island State Park which was absolutely gorgeous. You have to pay to take a ferry to the island, but it was totally worth it. We saw a bunch of dolphin even!!
• American Idol Experience Finale Show. After we got back Saturday night from the beach we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios to see the AIE Finale Show. I had seen some of the other shows and liked it but hadn't seen the Finale show. The Finale show is soooo much fun. 7 people sang and we got to vote on our favorite! It was really fun. But when we came out of the show it was DOWNPOURING....AGAIN!! Luckily, we had umbrellas and were able to make our way to the car more dry than others.
• Bike riding in Celebration! We rode bikes around Celebration twice and saw sooo many animals. We saw gators, a snake, a bunch of random birds, squirrels, ducks, turtles, etc. (Of course, it wasn't until after Katie left on Monday when I was out riding bikes again that I saw THREE otters!!!)

Really it was just nice to have one of my best friends around for a few days. Of course I was sad when she left. It's always hard for me when an Ohio friend leaves. I wish I could just call and meet up for dinner, but I suppose the occasional weekend trip will have to suffice. I'm blessed and thankful to have such great friends both in Ohio and here (and of course many other places, too!!!).

While Katie was here, though, we started talking about our trip to Ireland next summer. We came up with the idea about a year ago that we would go to Ireland after Katie finished her Masters degree. I'm so excited!!! We also decided that next time instead of Katie coming to visit me, we would meet up in a cool city and do some exploring. I do believe that Austin or Nasvhille is at the top of our list. What can I say, we like music a bit :) In the meantime, I'm looking forward to my trip to Columbus over Labor Day Weekend--just in time for the first Ohio State Football game of the season. GO BUCKEYES!