Friends.....

22 Years later, 4 friends met in Atlantic City, NJ for a girls spa weekend celebrating turning 40! I dare say, we all are much more fabulous than we were when we met as college freshmen at Dickinson College in 1986.
You only see 4 of us, Lizzy, Diane, Me (Paula) and Ginny.
When this whole potential girls weekend concept was born in early 2008 (thank-YOU Fancy Nancy), we were a group of 8. Then, when dates were tossed around and eventually finalized, we lost two to family vacations that overlapped or came too close to the date, we lost one to a wedding, and we lost one in the 11th hour to an unfortunate death in the family. The 4 remaining all contemplated cancelling too...and boy... am I glad we didn't!
It was a little surreal for me, I hadn't seen Liz and Diane in person since another friend's wedding in 2001. I do see Ginny at least once a year.....we try to at least. And it's different....it's not like we're so intertwined anymore, our lives are very different....we live in different areas of the country...our kids are different ages, we lead very different lives.
But we have a connection...there is something there that connects all of us to each other...it's remembering the dozens of memorable experiences we shared. Maybe it's because we were friends at an impressionable time in our lives, a fun time you never forget, the last hurrah before we all got real jobs, got married and had our families. Who knows?
What's funny is that it took all 4 of us to piece some memories together....all of us admittedly have lost brain cells over the last 22 years. Diane claims her brain is a sieve....and I'm pretty sure that mine is too. We all remember different things, but as a group, we put it all together.
A wonderful time was had, photos of our children were shared...updates on our husbands, our jobs ( ha, or my lack of one), our health, our parents, our recent vacations, etc....was how we spent our time conversing.
We stayed at The Borgata, met for a late dinner Friday night in Wolfgang Puck's restaurant, went for a drink after dinner at Bobby Flay's place...all in The Borgata. Saturday morning, we didn't open our eyes and get out of bed until 9am....honestly, I can't remember the last time I slept that late. We drove to the Boardwalk, went through the Tropicana and their new wing, The Quarter, we walked up and down, in the water on the beach...went back to the Borgata in early afternoon, sat outside for an hour and then went to Spa Toccare...um, WOW! We each did our individual spa thing, but then we reconvened in the whirlpool, steam room and sauna area...what an unbelievably relaxing afternoon (minus my lost jewelry drama which had a happy ending...thank-YOU VIRGINIA!).
We then got dressed and took a cab to the Pier at Caesars and ate at Buddakan, an Asian fusion restaurant that was AMAZING! We then went back to the Borgata and gambled a little....I was lucky enough to hit a royal flush at a 3 card poker table and made back the $$ it cost me to be there and then some (which I put towards a birthday handbag....shocking ladies, no?).
We had breakfast and went our ways on Sunday...back to our lives...I came home and Anthony and I took the boys swimming at Anthony's cousin's house down the block...we had a great day too!


To Lizzy, Di, Gin...thanks for the WONDERFUL weekend and the memories! You ladies are truly FABULOUS at ANY AGE!
Thanks for sharing all of your photos and stories about your families! See you at the next one!
To Fancy - Without you, NONE of it would have been possible...thank-YOU and we MISSED YOU!
To Susie, Mojo and Meg...I sincerely hope that you can all be there when we plan the next one...we had a toast to all of you ;-)
To all 8 of us....Happy 40th Birthday!!!!! (5/24, 6/14, 7/2, 7/15, 7/17, 7/20, 8/4 and 10/4)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!