Weekend in Jupiter/Palm City

Two weekends ago, we got to see more amazing friends from college. For the past two years, my friend Amy has been living in Dubai, and she came back to visit the U.S. for a few weeks so we just had to see her! We decided to meet in Palm City, where our friend Kelly and her husband Matt live. It's not too far from West Palm, where my sister Leslie was living/working this summer, and was easy to fly into. Bo and I flew down with another friend Kim, who also lives in Atlanta, and Amy took a (very sketchy) train ride across the state of Florida. As an extra bonus, another friend Alana and her fiance Matt happened to be in town from L.A. visiting another group of college friends on her way down to the Keys. All of us were Chi O's at Florida (a few pledge classes apart), so Kelly decided to have one mega-reunion on Friday night at her gorgeous, brand-new home in Jupiter. It was a blast seeing all these girls!!


The whole gang! PC2K, 02, 03, and 04
Tara, Kelly, Tricia, Alana, Kim, Me, Leslie, Amy and Kelly


Thank you Kelly for hosting such an awesome start to our weekend!

love this girl so much


Not just sorority sisters... our group also has two pairs of real-life sisters :)

Me & Leslie, Tara & Kim


Our real-life families are also connected in Chi O... Kim (also my college roomie!) is Amy's big sister, who is Leslie's (my real-life little sister) big sister. Got it? Good.

Chi O family
Leslie, Amy & Kim


Tricia and her husband Jordan drove up from Boynton Beach for the night. Sarah and I loved this girl so much, we called her our "middle" and we were her "left side" and "right side". So Tricky and I took a picture as if Sarah was with us - we missed her! (Although it's been years since we took one of these... we couldn't remember if I was the right side or the left side?)

Me and Tricky

I loved seeing Alana and Matt, for the first time in almost a year. Back in college, I used Alana's drivers license as my fake ID.  To this day, I still remember her address and zodiac sign. I can't wait to see her again next May in California for her wedding!

Me and Alana

Leslie especially liked Kelly & Dustin's cat, Pounce. They were instant BFF's.

meow

Afterward we went to (the other) Kelly and Matt's home in Palm City where we all stayed for the rest of the weekend. It was great to have a place for all of us to be together. As we usually do, we stayed up really late that night catching up with each other over a few beers.



Friday turned out to be a gorgeous day, which was a really nice surprise since earlier in the week the weather forecast for Tropical Storm Emily looked something like this:



        Really helpful forecast. Basically, the weather people had no clue what the storm was going to do.


We spent most of the day hanging out by the pool on their awesome back deck, playing Sponge Bob Square Pants Uno, and catching up some more over a few cases of beer.



<3 Me, Amy, Kelly, Leslie and Kim <3



To celebrate Amy's return to America, Kim made a fun USA-themed power hour playlist, Kelly and Matt made a delicious all-American dinner for all of us, and we had plenty of beer.

Cheeseburgers, pulled pork and UF pasta salad...yum

BEEEEEEEER

And Amy got us all surprise gifts from the desert!!


Simba vodka from Kenya



authentic head scarves



jihad bobble-heads

New Gator gear - handmade bracelets from a Kenyan market

Amy taught everyone the proper way to wear the head wraps.

After one lesson, Matt was a pro. He could do it himself and it turned out really good!





We thoroughly enjoyed our gifts! Thank you Amy!! I'll give you one guess as to what we're all dressing up as for Halloween this year ;)  We spent the rest of the night playing cards and catching up over even more beers (theme of the weekend). I couldn't ask for a better weekend with such great friends!

I caught a great shot of the sun setting over their backyard - isn't this an awesome view?!

Kelly and Matt were terrific hosts - thank you guys for such an amazing weekend!  It was so sad saying goodbye to everyone (most especially Amy) on Sunday, but we've already started planning our reunion for next year :)