Sara's Bachelorette Weekend

Last weekend, I drove up to Gatlinburg, TN to celebrate my cousin, Sara, for her bachelorette weekend! Sara wanted more of a girls weekend rather than a traditional bachelorette party. And for the most part, that's what she got - but her friends didn't let her get away without a little bachelorette fun :)

Friday night we threw a lingerie shower and played some really fun games. These girls are so creative! Her MOH, Mary has most of the pictures from that night so hopefully I'll add some of the more tasteful ones later ;)

a few of her goodies!

opening my present :)

Sara's Bride cup for the night!

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Saturday we headed to the Tanger outlets and shopped til we dropped. I did some serious damage there...

After our shopping excursion we headed back to the cabin for the night. We stayed at my parent's cabin up in the mountains. I hadn't been there in over five years, so it was great to see the place. Sara and her friends live in Knoxville, which is about an hour and a half away, so they come to the cabin pretty regularly. In fact, I think they've all been there more times than I have! (For anyone interested in staying there you can rent it here. Free advertising, mom and dad - you're welcome!)

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we hung out on the deck for most of the afternoon and played Spoons (or Forks...). It quickly became a fierce competition!

view from the deck

Stephanie wins!

Sara wins!

can you tell we are related?!

cousin love

We waited until it got a little cooler so we could go in the hot tub that night. After several hours, we couldn't get it above 89 degrees (user error?) so it was more like a lukewarm bath. But Sara really wanted to go in, so I braved it with her. We didn't stay in very long though :)

The cabin is called "City Lights" because it has a fantastic view of the downtown area all lit up at night. I couldn't get my camera settings just right, so this is the best I got - but it's so much prettier in person.

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Sunday morning we all said our goodbyes and headed home. It's about a four hour drive to Atlanta, and a little over an hour of it is through the Smoky Mountains. Since I was by myself, I got to stop the car a few times and take some pictures along the drive for once.

Sara's mom (also my godmother, hi Aunt Liz!) is my mom's older sister, and Sara has always been like a big sister to me. When we were younger, and we both despised our respective siblings (sorry, we love you all now), we turned to each other for relief. Before the days of text messages, IM, and email, we used to hand write each other letters all the time, snail-mail style. And we still have each others' addresses memorized to this day because of it. We just have so many great memories together over the years. We stayed up extra late both nights this past weekend talking about anything and everything, just like the old days (minus Uncle Dave's morning ritual of singing "Oh let the sun shine in!" to us). It was so great to spend this weekend with her. And, I actually have to thank her for my life. Before she was born, my parents had a deal that if Sara was a girl they would start trying for kids, and if she was a boy they would wait. I'm so glad she was a girl! I arrived just 11 months after she was born :)  So, thank you Sara for being you! And for being such a great cousin and friend. I love you and can't wait for your wedding next month!