Hello, and welcome to Monday, everyone. Well actually, Monday's just about over, but after a 2-hour nap and handful of pepperoni pizza Combos, I'm read to write this recap now.
Nope, not a race recap. A recap of a glorious weekend of sugar, glitter, spa treatments, stretchy-waist pants, Jax Teller, giggles, bean dip, and vintage hats.
In other words, it was the second annual Tramp Camp weekend.
Tramp Camp (n.): the female response to a man's "Deer Camp" or, in the case of our men, "Beer Camp", where estrogen rules the weekend, leggings = pants, and nothing is off-limits or off-topic.
A few of us started Tramp Camp last year and celebrated the weekend in Grand Rapids, a large city in northwest Michigan. Since I'm getting close to popping, we played the safe card this year and held TC at my house instead of traveling to an exotic faraway land (because if you know GR, you know how exotic it is).
The girls - myself and my sister, Betsy, along with Liz, Kristen, Cassie, Sarah, and Cristi - kicked things off on Friday by eating and drinking ourselves (beer and wine for them, water for me!) into a near food coma.
I could lie and say we ate fancy caviar and filet mignon bites, but really our spread included two pans of bean dip, pita and hummus, cupcakes, cookies, and candy. Yum.
Sarah entertained us with an informative party about some... unmentionable products. Sorry, gotta keep it PG-13 and under, folks.
And we stayed up giggling and nibbling and drinking (more water and whoa! a Coke Zero) until nearly 2 a.m., a rare feat for all of us these days.
On Saturday morning, we carbed up for a day of spa-ing and shopping.
There is some fruit among those donuts. It's just that I ate more donuts and bagels than fruit. Win.
We headed to the Aveda Institute at the Douglas J salon in nearby Royal Oak.
If you're in Michigan, getting a spa treatment at one of their several locations is a must-do. It's cheap and amazing. My 1-hour pedicure was a mere $35; Kristen and Sarah got 1-hour facials for $37, and Liz and Cristi indulged in a manicure for $24. Can't beat that.
Me/LBA, Cristi, Kristen, Liz, Cassie
After a very nice, very hip Aveda man took our photo (minus Sarah and my sister who'd bowed out of the party weekend at this point), we moved our antics to a lovely little restaurant and corner store called Pronto! for lunch.
Pronto! (yep, it really has the exclamation mark) served our lunch needs - tasty food and cold cocktails and giant cookies the size of a small dinner plate - and thus, it also earns an official Tramp Camp Tramp Stamp of Approval (that's kind of like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, but much more trampy).
With full bellies, it was time to get our vintage shop on.
Our Friend Kevin, who's also Cassie's boyfriend, will be hosting this year's Festivus party in a few weeks, so we had to get our costumes prepared. (More on Festivus in a later post this month!)
Lost & Found Vintage in Royal Oak was a hit. Although I was worried about finding the right dress to fit over the bump, we still managed to try on about 20 dresses in total. It was fun to step on the Way Back Machine and model 60's era frocks.
Eventually, Cassie, Kristen, and I settled on a few lovely numbers.
Now all I have to do is practice my 1960's I'm-pregnant-but-I-still-smoke-and-drink act, and I'll be set for Festivus. Ha.
By this time, we were pretty tired and decided to trade in our fancy dinner plans for comfy leggings, more bean dip and candy, and a Jax Teller/Sons of Anarchy marathon on Netflix.
(source)
Jax was deemed "dirty hot" by Liz. Very true. He's kind of trashy and greasy in a good way.
By Sunday morning, the four remaining Tramps were pretty bean dipped out, and since everyone had Sunday shenanigans going on, we packed up our feather boas and stillettos and called it another solid, fantastic Tramp Camp weekend.
However, since Baxter (the original Tramp) and I had nothing else on our agenda, we proceeded to snuggle on the couch all day and watch Love Actually until Kevin arrived home from his weekend up north with the guys.
She stuck her tongue out at him because he smelled a little like sweat and beer and football, I think.
All in all, the weekend was exactly what this 35.5-weeks pregnant lady needed - a little eating, a whole lot of relaxing, and truckload of Tramping. 'Til next year, ladies...
Anyone else celebrate Tramp Camp or something like it? What's your favorite girls' night/day/weekend out activity?