girls getaway and friend-versary trip

 Happy Monday, friends! I thought I'd share about a fun trip I took at the end of last week. My best friend Missy and I celebrated seven years of being besties by going on our fourth annual Christmas trip. This is always a quick trip and a music event is involved. We've done Jackson, Tn for two years straight and last year we went to Nashville. This year we stayed near Nashville in a charming little town called Columbia. 

Our favorite worship leader Travis Cottrell put on a Christmas concert through Compassion International at a cool place called The Mule House and it was so good! Here's how it went when we left home at 9:45 Thursday morning. We hit the road and arrived there three hours later. Our first stop was right in town on the square for lunch at a cute place called Marcy Joe's.

I had blueberry pancakes and bacon, and it was all to die for. This is a restaurant owned by the Fleek family- remember the story about Joey and Rory? We had no idea it was a famous place, we were just hungry and in need of a restroom. After lunch, we walked down the street to a cute little boutique (and past this mural) called The Faded Farmhouse.

Please excuse the curse word on this tea towel, but I came this close to buying it for my husband. He always says something similar to our sons, minus the bad word. We hit the jackpot in our first store and this was my second favorite of the whole trip. We stayed for a while and Missy finished her complimentary coffee they offered, then after driving around for a bit, we checked into the hotel and took naps while watching The Hallmark channel. 

It. was. GLORIOUS.

Missy and I never get five minutes alone anymore, and this trip was one we wanted and needed desperately! We're busy these days doing different things, so this was refreshing. We spruced up and grabbed dinner at Sonic, thanks to my sister Debi, and went to The Mule House for the concert. It was raining the whole night, but it didn't dampen our excitement. The concert was great and the venue was gorgeous. 

We were glad the rain stopped by the end of the concert and drove back to the hotel for a shower and snacks. We both woke up so early the next morning, but managed to fall back to sleep until 8:30. We had our quiet times, I finished a book and started another and we checked out around noon. After a late and carb heavy breakfast, we went back to the cute town square for a little more shopping before heading home.

(This was the courthouse on the square the night before.)

And here it was in the daytime.

Our first stop was to a bookshop. Imagine that! It's the cutest little bookshop I've ever been in, Duck River Books and I embarrassed myself with all the gushing I did.

I made sure the owner didn't mind me taking all the pictures before taking all the pictures. We helped keep them open by putting down a good bit of money here and it was my favorite shop that we visited that day. We also went to a little mercantile store that wasn't really a mercantile and we drove around to look at houses. 

We left around two after one last stop at Sonic for some more carbs, then were back home by five that afternoon. (We kept saying that we ate all the carbs on this trip, because we both try not to eat too many of those these days.) That, my friends, is a perfect trip! 

This season is always crazy, so we figure what's a little more and look forward to doing something along these lines every year. We need this time together both for our sanity and for the good of our friendship, otherwise, we'd grow apart. We talk on the phone multiple times each week, but we also like to be face to face sometimes. We travel well together, because we consider ourselves easy to please. We don't care what or where we eat, we don't keep a strict schedule or have things set in stone that we want to do, sometimes we see what we want to and other times we don't. We did decide we'd make this trip again either over the summer or next Christmas. We always figure we need this one little happy getaway to prepare us for whatever is ahead. 

Do you ever make girls' only trips like this? I'd love to hear about them! I actually do this pretty often. I've been with Missy, Missy and another friend named Teresa, and I've been on two trips this year with my writing team friends—one trip to the mountains and one to the beach. I have another little getaway planned in the spring with my mom-in-love as we go visit her best friend together. I love having things planned to look forward to! Something even as small as a day trip is something that counts every bit as much. I feel very fortunate to be able to do this and I am grateful for the opportunities I get. 

Thanks for reading my blog, friends! Love to all. ❤