my best girlfriends & i do something super fun every summer that i’d like to start documenting so we don’t forget the details! we borrowed the idea from one friend’s sister (it’s what their group does) and we love it so much that we took it on. this is our 2nd annual GMT, or “girls mystery trip.” last year, marli planned it & took us to san antonio (we were both preggers at the time so this trip was very different, ha!) everyone fronts a certain amount of money & one person plans the trip and the destination is a surprise until the morning of!!!
the person planning – who happened to be ME this year – manages the budget & decides everything from where we stay, how we’re going to get there, designing and ordering t-shirts (here is last years design), thinking of an activity to do while there & cool restaurants to go to. the cost per person is supposed to cover everything except for alcohol, which basically means room, meals out, groceries and gas. and we even had enough in the budget for a round of margaritas at dinner one night AND souvenier friendship bracelets…i was pretty proud of how i managed that budget down to the last dollar!
another thing is the dates stay the same every year so there’s no questioning when & trying to figure out and coordinate everyone’s summer schedule. we leave on a thursday and come back on saturday evening-ish so that we have sunday to be home with hubbies/family before the workweek, which is nice!
destination reveal video:
i had never been to fredericksburg before & heard it was a great girl’s trip destination! i didn’t want us to be driving all day since we were in two separate cars but i wanted to go far enough out of dallas that it felt “out of town.” it took us about 5 hours to get there, including an obligatory stop at buc-ees.
pinning down the destination was the hardest part & then looking up where we were going to stay was the fun part for me! i booked us this house a few minutes from the main street area with enough rooms/beds to sleep 8 people. my prerequisite was that the house have a pool! i mean, we are in texas…in the middle of july! there was also fredericksburg trade days going on the weekend we were going to be there, so that was the “activity” i planned for us all to do on friday morning. keeping scrolling to see more of our trip!
we arrived thursday evening with enough time to enjoy the pool and make tacos for dinner
swimming with dandi & the leaf on her forehead! can you believe we have been friends for over 20 years???
bye breastfeeding boobs, hi again mosquito bites!
sister love!
swapped bathings suits for comfy clothes to have dinner & chill at the house for the night!
bright-eyed & bushy-tailed heading to fredericksburg trade days on a friday morning
you know you’re in texas hill country when…. H-E-B!
after shopping around sweating our asses off at trade days we went back to the house to hang out for a while and cool the F off. we ordered like 5 pizzas & swam around to pass the afternoon and it was so fun just hanging out listening to music and chillin’ with friends. after a while, we alternated showing, got ready & had phylicia fix us up some fancy french braids. we had gotten a recommendation to go to hondo’s on main for dinner so that’s where we went! the line to order was crazy long (you order and then sit down, vs a traditional restaurant where you sit down and have your order taken) but since i was paying, i just took everyone’s order & the girls looked for a table and by the time i paid they had figured something out with enough chairs for all of us. it was a super busy place with strong ass margaritas!
after hondo’s we found another place called mac’s with a cute patio & we posted up only to realize they were closing down for the night (it was friday night on main street, sups weird) so we started talking about leaving & i guess the people at the table behind us owned the place or something and heard us because they brought us vodka shots in ketchup to-go containers. maybe it was a gesture to let us know it was ok if we wanted to stay longer or something (?) which we did for a little bit before headed back to the house to continue the party.
saturday morning we woke up, packed, cleaned a bit & made mimosas before drawing names for who would plan next year’s GMT!
marli planned last year so she’s holding the hat while i draw a name. the anticipation was killing ALL OF US! we even joked about drawing names the night we got there, but i think our tradition of doing it the morning we leave is best so we can focus on being present during the trip and then as we leave have an element of surprise & something to look forward to.
AND THE WINNER IS……..
after celebrating mirelle as next year’s planner, we headed back to the main street area for breakfast at java ranch coffee. it was such a cute, casual place! their cinnamon rolls were TDF!
twinking at the coffee bar with mirelle – who’s who?!
to commemorate GMT 2019 when we walked past this cactus just before leaving fredericksburg i knew we should carve GMT into it & molly agreed to do it while i documented- this was so 8th grade of us!
but there are repercussions to messing with cacti….
i tried to help pry cactus needles out of her arm on the drive home but didn’t have tweezers. she even said she found some stuck in her arm a week later!
until next year!
thanks for reading!
