Thursday after Michelle and Crystal flew in, Kati and I leid them with green and white leis and took them to a bar on the water for some beverages under the sun. We caught up and discussed our weekend plans, so excited to be reunited. We came back to my apartment and got ready for the St Patty's night events. On our way back we had to stop and buy some honey. Somewhere Kati had heard that if you have two tablespoons of honey before you go to bed then you won't be hungover the next morning. So honey was the first on our must have list, we had to try it. We went to O'Brien's Pub which was set up outside with tents and live music and men in kilts playing on bag pipes. We opted for bottles of green beer instead of keg green beer. A couple of my friends also came out to meet us and we had a good time. My official name for the weekend was "jersey chaser" as I seem to be drawn to professional athletes. I found myself at the bar with one of the Tampa Bay Bucs football players getting him to buy me shots. Black, white, it doesn't matter to me..I was just loving me some athletes! Kati was known as the "hat whore" No, she's not a whore but when she is out drinking she likes to take men's hats and wear them around and pose for pictures. Suprisingly, she is still lice free. Michelle and Crystal are the married ones of the 4 of us but they still get their groove on and have a good time. Michelle is the one in the group that turns heads wherever she goes so needless to say we had plenty of drinks bought for us over the weekend. After the bar we came home and had Kati pouring honey down our throats (who measures out two tablespoons after a long night of drinking?!)We woke up Friday morning and three out of the four felt amazing! (Crystal was hurting bad) Maybe the honey really did work? We had more days to test it out of course. We packed up and headed to Clearwater Beach. We checked into our hotel and left Crystal in the room to sleep. The beach was PACKED! What else should you expect with spring break though. We had a little cooler of beer and waited for Crystal to wake up and join us. She finally felt better then we decided to go back to our hotel bar and pool. Had some more fun under the sun then it was time to get ready for the night! Jess came and joined us after she got out of work so the fantastic 4 turned into the fab 5 for the night! We got ready, played some music, drank some beer, watched Crystal put in her hot hair extensions then headed for dinner. We didn't eat much but decided to box it up and save it for an after drinking delight. After dinner we headed to the tiki bar outside and met a group of older married men. They were nice guys and weren't really hitting on us, just talked and wanted to buy us drinks. Who would turn down free drinks? We socialized for awhile and then went into the club for some bottle service. We orded our bottle of vodka and people watched the dance floor until we were ready to get out there and show off some moves. The married men appeared again and got us to join their bottle service and after 4 bottles of champagne and 4 bottles of vodka spent on us I would say it was a pretty successful night. While I was on the dance floor I found myself surrounded by a bachelor party and all of his friends were asking me to dance on the bachelor..who turns out, plays baseball for the Phillies. Jersey chaser. He was the bachelor though so it was all in fun. I look over to the other side of the dance floor and Kati is wearing some man's hat of course, doing the robot. Her signature dance move. It doesn't matter if a rap song was playing or a country song. Kati would be breaking out the robot! For the first time I experienced a full night of shoeacide. This occurs when you wear high heels the whole night and can't even feel your feet the next morning. Usually I keep flats in my purse but for the first time I went all heels, all night. Ouch. Anyways, after the club closed we went to Ihop and sat there to order breakfast but then remembered we all had leftover dinner so went up to the room to have a feast. Apparently 5 girls having a feast and making drunk dials aren't exactly the quietest things ever, so we had security at the door and calling our room but we promised to be quiet and were able to stay. All I remember before finally falling asleep was Kati pouring honey down our throats.
Woke up Saturday morning and amazingly felt pretty damn good. We all did actually. Maybe this honey thing really does work. We packed up to head back to my apartment and to get ready for the Billy Currington/Zac Brown Band/Kenny Chesney concert. We were starting to feel a little tired and not as motivated so we pulled the "hair of the dog" and started drinking beer. The concert was at Raymond James Stadium where the Bucs play, so we got there and tailgated a little bit. My mom was our DD....what a trooper :) The concert started at 4:30 and we enjoyed Billy and Zac Brown Band but Kenny was so disappointing! The sound system just wasn't right when he performed and he was so hard to hear. I think us being high up had something to do with it and the fact it was an outdoor football stadium. Kati managed to put on the guys hat behind us and pose for a picture. It's just not a night out without this happening! We love you Kati! We left the concert during Kenny but it was still 10:30 so 6 hours at one concert and lots of beer drinking was a really long time! We didn't want to go out to another bar so instead we stopped and got some beer, frozen pizza, mac and cheese, chips and dip and tator tots. My neighbor let us come to his apartment and drink and play games and cook since my roommate wasn't having it with us. We played some cards and did head stands and cartwheels and the airplane. Pretty typical right? It was a fun time. Sunday morning I woke up and I felt like crap. I had been drinking non-stop since Wednesday night and it had finallly hit me. I was struggling to even move but I knew we had one more beach day ahead of us so I had to find the motivation. The other girls were doing pretty good. I was thinking by now we would all have cavities from honey being poured straight into our mouths every night. And yes, we all did go to dental hygiene school together. haha
Kati drove my car to the beach for me since my head was pounding and we got there and went straight to Frenchy's. A well known place in Clearwater. We split the cheese fries and grouper..one of my favs there. Of course we had to pull the "hair of the dog" again and started with bloody mary's. It went down okay and we were all feeling pretty good. We then realized that at 4pm Lil Jon was going to be performing on the beach for 20 bucks a ticket. For a full spring break experience, this was an opportunity we just couldn't pass up. OOOOKKAAAY! We switched to strawberry colada's (yum!) and tried to mentally prepare for this rap show. Such an opposite day compared to our cowboy hats and country concert the night before. Have you ever seen MTV when they show spring break concerts and girls in bikinis are getting crazy and everyone is having a drunken time dancing on each other...well that is exactly what it was like. Lil Jon and his entourage came out and were pouring shots down throats and whipping beads and cds. Girls were literally getting it on in front of us and everyone was just getting down. It was something I have never experienced before but now I can at least say I have. Michelle got her picture with Lil Jon after she had been grinding in her bikini (one of the things on her bucket list) and after a long afternoon of mixed drinks, dancing, rap music and a parking ticket we finally headed home. It really was a good day and I'm so glad we decided to do it. We ended our last day of spring break in true spring break style.
Monday morning came early when it was time to say goodbye and then I had the longest work day of my life while they were having delays in airports. It was all worth it though. We had such a successful spring break trip, making up for the spring break experiences we never took the opportunity to do.
It really was a wonderful weekend and one that I will always remember. We vowed to do this once a year around this time so it will be easier to plan around and something that will be set in time for us. I know I will always remain close with these girls and it makes me smile. These are friendships I will have forever. I already have my flight booked to fly up to Des Moines at the end of April and we already have a night planned out since I will be there. Bring on Spring Break '99...and don't forget the honey.
Thank you girls for an amazing weekend.
