Mother's Day Getaway

It's that time of year again. The time of year when all the Excell girls gather together, dump their kids in their husbands' loving arms and skip town for Girly Girl Weekend!

See ya later boys!

Don't check the bank account while we're gone.

I was in charge of the girls' weekend this year. I loved that we ended up going the weekend of Mother's Day. It was the perfect Mother's Day gift because none of us had to bring any babies for the first time ever! Since we were childless, I decided to have a let's-do-all-the-fun-things-we-can't-normally-do-because-kids-sometimes-don't-cooperate theme. Don't get us wrong now. We love being mothers. But it was nice to get in and out of a car without wrestling with carseats for a couple days. Plus I actually had time to let loose and slip into some stilts at the shoe store as we meandered through the mall.

If Tana and I ever wanted to be carnival people, we found our niche -- amazon women in heels. Come one, come all.

Shopping sure can wear a girl out! Luckily Celeste and Laura put on a fashion show for us at Sear's so that we could take a breather.

We stopped by Camille's for a darling little lunch. Notice the new wallet I'm sporting. I finally retired my wallet from my junior year of high school.

Chick food at its finest.

More shopping happened -- as is evident from my new PURSE! Yes. I said it. Purse. I am now a purse owner. Never really been a purse girl. And I don't know how I lived so long without one. I also bought boots (I'm talking knee-high boots here, people) for the very first time in my life. I came home a new woman. Jeff almost didn't recognize me.

Anyway, with my new purse, we made our way to a movie in the evening. The movie was really good. Movies are such a luxury to me ever since having kids. I love slipping away to the theater.

We had fun chatting before finally crashing for the night. The next morning we went on a walk and did family names at the temple. Then we hopped on over to The Pizza Factory for lunch.

At lunch everyone shared something special about their moms. It was neat to hear how each mom has influenced each daughter.

Then this happened. Three times in a row, but I'll only give him the honor of appearing once on the blog.

Little did he know, I am reeeeeeeeeaaallly good at editing photos.

After much shopping, eating and laughing, it was time to pack it up and head home. Oh, what's that? We had to pack an extra person, boxes full of shoes and clothes, and a few groceries more than we came with? Will that fit? Don't we need a man to figure out how to load the car just right? No. We have the car-packing expert Mary. She impressively got us all cozied in with room to spare.

We stopped by Mary's parents' house on the way home to drop off a Mother's Day gift.

Mary's dad picked us all flowers from his beautiful garden.

We got home around dinnertime on Saturday. I didn't realize how much I could miss my little family after not seeing them for such a short time until I saw them Saturday night. They were so cute and happy and I could tell they had a lot of fun having some father and son time. But I sure missed my boys!

I'm sure Mary missed her boys too.

And if she didn't miss her boy, I sure did! Thanks for giving me a fun Mother's Day weekend, Jeff!

I love this tradition and I'm already looking forward to getting together again next year!