Girl's Trip 2015: Midway/Park City

I got home Sunday evening (yes, I know, for the second time this month - Trent is a saint!) from our annual girl's trip with my sisters and cousins.  This year we kept it a little more low-key and my sister found us a cabin to stay in in Midway, Utah (thank you Amy!).  It's kind of funny because 8 of the 10 girls live in Utah anyway, so it was just me and Jordan that flew in.

I flew into Salt Lake Friday afternoon (the 23rd) and Jen picked me up right when she finished teaching.  We went back to her place so she could pack up and then picked up my sister Jill from her place and we headed to the cabin in Midway.

Jen and I were a little surprised to find that we were totally matching :)

We got settled in and headed to dinner at one of the few restaurants in Midway ;)  We kept trying to get a picture with all of us, but they kept coming out blurry, and then we asked the waiter and it still came out blurry..haha.  This will have to do.

Then we headed to the Midway Ice Castles.  It was absolutely frigid, but definitely fun to see them.  I was so glad I decided to cram my puffy winter coat into my suitcase at the last second that morning.

Everyone but Meg, who was in the bathroom.

There were 2 slides.  Here are Amy and Bryn.

And Jen and Melissa.

And Tori.

We'll call this the Wishing Well ;)

On our way back, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some breakfast options before heading back to the cabin.

That evening we threw Meg and Amy a surprise baby shower. Thanks to Jordan for planning it all!  She had talked to each of us prior to the trip and we all pitched in for gifts.  We got each of them a pair of white Freshly Picked baby moccasins.

Meg, Jordan, and Amy - you can't even tell they're pregnant in this pic!

Jordan made all of the adorable decorations :)

The whole group :)

Pretend you're pregnant..haha.

I got this shot from the back deck the next morning.

I woke up Saturday feeling, what I imagine to be, hungover.  We hadn't gone to bed until like 2 and I woke up with a pounding headache :/  I'm getting too old for this..haha.  Luckily we leisurely got ready and then we thought we'd go into Park City and check out the Sundance Film Festival.  It was like 1:30 before we got out the door..haha.  I actually didn't realize the Sundance Festival would be going on, so this was news to me!  And we definitely weren't prepared for the craziness.  We kept thinking surely we'd be able to find somewhere to park in some neighborhood or something, but there was absolutely nothing!  As you can tell, we are complete amateurs.  We did see one parking garage asking $60 to park.  I guess if we had been real die-hards we would've forked out the money..haha..but we were just starting to feel really grumpy because we were so hungry..haha.

I only got one picture as we drove up Main Street.  At that point we still had hope we'd find a parking spot, so I thought we'd get to walk around and take more pictures ;)

We finally gave up and headed to the Park City shopping outlets to get some lunch.  I was so grateful when we found a Five Guys.  That burger tasted so good to me!  Then we did some shopping.  A group still wanted to try Sundance while the rest of us just wanted to go back to the cabin and get cozy.  I was among the latter group.  We stopped at the grocery store again and picked up some pizzas and cookie dough and headed back.  This was probably my favorite part of the trip. I know, I'm a total homebody!  I loved just being able to relax and chit chat with some of my very favorite people.

Dayna happened to be in town for the weekend as well, so she came by to see us all.  And the rest of the group got back from Sundance soon after that.  We had some girl talk and reminisced with the Lund girls about their dad in the bunk bed room.  I hope they felt of all of our love and support.  And then Dayna's boyfriend came over later so that we could all meet him.  He was a super nice guy and we were mostly happy to have him around to take a picture of our whole group ;)  We took it easy and turned on John Tucker Must Die and then Parent Trap after that, a classic.

Jen, Jill, Jordan, and I got the bunk bed room :)  The 3 other rooms had queen and king-size beds (Amy and Tori in the master, Bryn and Meg, and Amanda and Melissa).

The next morning, the Lund girls had to leave by 7:45 to get Jordan to the airport.  The rest of us were still asleep :/  It was such a short trip.  A whole day shorter than last year's girl's trip.  Amy called us from upstairs at 9:45 and said we were supposed to be checked out of the house by 10, so we all frantically threw all of our stuff into our suitcases and got dressed..haha.  The cleaning lady hadn't shown up yet so we actually didn't get out of there until almost 11, just chit chatting and what not.

I had to put up this picture just because it's too funny and awkward. We took this on the driveway as we were packing up the cars to head out ;)

Then we had brunch at Cheesecake Factory.  The sun was so bright!! My left eye was pretty much closed..haha.

And then Jen and Jill dropped me off at the airport.  It was a fun trip and I loved being with my sisters and cousins. How grateful I am that they are all my dearest friends :)

Such Tourists in LA :)

January 18th

Saturday we spent the morning and early afternoon on Hollywood Boulevard doing some touristy things.  We walked along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and checked out the Chinese Theatre with the famous handprints, footprints, and signatures of many celebrities in the concrete.  Apparently there are almost 200 - it didn't seem like that many to me when we were there!  I only got pictures of a handful of them.

Gotta love Will Smith.

John Travolta.

Meryl Streep - had to get her since we'd just seen her on Ellen :)

Matt Damon.

Some of the Twilight cast.

Tom Hanks.

Jennifer Aniston - she was wearing heels :)

Adam Sandler.

There was a fun mall next door with a huge candy boutique that we checked out.  These steps were piano keys and would actually play as you walked up and down them :)

We got tickets to tour the Dolby Theatre, but had some time to use up, so we did a little shopping.

The Dolby Theatre is where the Academy Awards take place and Ellen actually hosted this year just the other week on March 2nd. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside during the tour.

Stairway up to the entrance of the Dolby Theatre.

It was interesting to see and hear how they get all set up for the Academy Awards because the theatre is literally inside a mall, so they were explaining how they cover all of the store fronts with curtains and roll out the red carpet.  We got to go up on the stage and they kept telling us that we were just kind of seeing the bones and framework and that it would look a lot nicer for the Awards..haha.

We got to see an Oscar and learned that celebrities are absolutely prohibited from giving away or selling an Oscar they've won.  If for some reason they don't want it, they can give it back to the Academy and they'll receive a dollar in return.  ONE dollar..haha.  Also, they're names aren't engraved on the Oscar until the after party.  So it really is a complete surprise for the announcers (and everyone else) as to who the winner is.

Picture after our tour.

It was fun to watch the Academy Awards the other week and see how they had dolled up the whole place since when we had seen it :)

Jimmy Kimmel airs across the street.

After that we headed to lunch at The Ivy.  Jordan got us reservations there.  It's kind of a celebrity hotspot so we were hoping to see someone, but no such luck.  Oh well, it was still fun to be there :)  We were a little surprised to find out that sharing is not allowed (it's a little pricey there), but we just kind of laughed and decided it was part of the experience ;)

Such a cute group, if I say so myself :) 

Just a shot of it from across the street.

There was lots of high end boutique shopping around there, so we did a little "window shopping."  I loved the ivy all over Stella McCartney's storefront.

The girls were excited to check out DASH, founded by the Kardashian sisters.  I actually didn't know anything about it because I don't watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians..ha.

Just a quick walk through :)

More ivy love - Diane von Furstenberg.

We headed back to the hotel for naps (haha) and later that evening we got a little more dressed up and headed to The Grove, an outdoor shopping mall.  It was a nice night and fun to just take it easy.

A nice backdrop for us sisters in Anthropologie..haha.

On this night baby girl was really active and the girls all got to feel her moving around :)  Amy was a little shocked that she "high kicked" her..haha.

We shopped and picked up some cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory, the best!

Not the best pictures, but we needed to document :)

We drove down Rodeo Drive and headed back to the hotel to get packed up.  The next day we flew home.  I was a little sad that all of the girls got to fly together.  And it stunk because their flight was like 5 hours before mine..ha.  I was so early they wouldn't even let me check in for like another hour!

Anyway, it was such a fun trip!  It freaked me out though, while giving hugs and saying goodbye, that the next time I'd be seeing them I'd have a new baby!!  Little did we know that I'd be seeing my sisters and Bryn just a few weeks later (with my Dad's accident and all).  I'm so glad to have my sisters and cousins as my very best friends :) Hopefully we can keep up the girl's trips!