Beaufort Does the Beach

I try to get together with the Writing Class as much as possible, but it's really only feasible once a year. For the last few years, Jillian, Emily and I were having unofficial reunions (we had one in Virginia in 2013 and one in Cleveland in 2014), but last year for the first time we stepped it up a notch and went to Birmingham. It was so much fun and really neat to get away with just us, and Christina too, who we'd all for some reason not done a good job of staying in touch with when we all went our separate ways. 

Here we are in 2005. We wrote a play and recorded it to enjoy forever (heavy sarcasm), and also took this picture. 

So this year, we met up in St Petersburg! Christina lives there, and we were all craving some beach time, so it was PERFECT. Everyone got there on Thursday. Emily flew in with baby Tirzah early afternoon, and I didn't leave until after work but still arrived at the Tampa airport in enough time to pick Jillian up at the airport, and then we arrived at about 11. We chatted until very late in the evening.

Christina worked Friday until about noon, and then we all went out to lunch at a Thai place Emily found online. It was terrific and CHEAP. All four of us ate for around $30 with a tip.

We hit the beach after lunch. It's about five days from Christina's house!

After the beach, we walked to Publix to get some food for dinner.

We had tacos for dinner and then sat around and talked, not quite as late as the night before, but certainly not very early either.

We did the beach again on Saturday.

Tirzah was in need of a nap, so Emily took her back and then Caleb picked the rest of us up a little while later when it looked like storm clouds were coming in.

We had "finger foods" for dinner - sausages, spinach dip, and salad.

Since we won't all reunite for a year (they might, but I will be in Germany), we decided this was the night we were "celebrating everything". We ran out for party hats and couldn't find any, so we bought poster board at CVS and made them. I think we started this at about 10pm and we all were laughing at nothing in particular and also no one was good at making party hats. The late night and laughter took us back to many late nights in high school.

We made a fruit pizza as well. It was very good, but we didn't spray the pizza stone and Emily had to use all her might and chip it off the stone. Whoops.

Caleb was studying for the bar, but he came down to take our picture and we made him pose for one too.

We found a church to attend the next morning, and after the service and after lunch, we took pictures with Christina's nice camera. I'm used to using my iPhone for pictures because of convenience, but when I see nice pictures, I'm reminded how much of a difference quality does make!

The two pregnant ladies (Jillian is due in November and Christina is due in February).

The two non-preggos. We tried the sorority squat first.

We hit the pool one last time before we had to part ways.

I was the first to leave because I had to work on Monday, so we got one last picture.

They packed me snacks.

It was a great weekend. Relaxing, lots of time to sit and catch up, and of course too short. Oh! And I didn't get a sunburn (Jillian and Christina did, so this is notable). Can't wait until next year!