rachelpalooza and honkystock!

As I've mentioned before, May is the month of birthdays and it's MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR! Honky's bday is May 19th (along with roomie Carl!), and mine is the 23rd aka Rachelpalooza! We've decided Honky's bday from here on out will be referred to as Honkystock. 

Since I get to make my own schedule, I hightailed it to the beach to celebrate the best time of year for a couple weeks! The first weekend I was there was the wedding in St. Augustine. The next Tuesday was Honky's bday. That Monday we went fishing with his brothers, Caldwell and Heywood. 

It was so pretty! 

We didn't catch a single thing, but that was alright. We had good company and plenty of beer. :)

Let me tell you, it's all fun and games until you're a girl on a boat with only boys and you have to pee. I was wearing a strapless bathing suit, which usually doesn't matter until this day. I was lowered into the water to do my business but then I was unable to get out (no ladder + beer = no strength to pull myself over the side). Honks pulled me up with both hands, the suit went down, and that's the story of how his brothers got to know me better than they should. 

Since we didn't catch dinner, we went to the store. 

Clearly we were thirsty. Also, can you carry a case with one hand not using the handle? Me neither. 

We went to Heywood's house to cook. He had this paper lantern things for some reason, and he let me let one go. 

By "let me" I mean he basically did the whole thing himself, and I assisted. haha!

I also "assisted" with cooking. Boys and their grills, amiright?

It was SO GOOD. 

At midnight, Honks turned the big 2-9! We stayed at Heywood's and got back to Honks' house early the next morning since he had to work. 

I took that opportunity to prepare some birthday treats! Like this GIANT COOKIE ICE CREAM SANDWICH CAKE! 

After work, we went to the beach to enjoy the gloooorious day!

Gordo showed up and iced me! Payback for when I did it to him over Adult Spring Break. 

I'm giving the thumbs up, but that big ol' Smirnoff did not go down easy.

Birfday selfie! 

Caroline met us on the beach and took some proper bday pics! 

I posted this to instagram and everyone agreed we looked nakey. Rut roh. 

After the beach, we went back to Honky's and couldn't resist send Carl a picture of his bday gift, the Absolut pride/rainbow bottle! Caroline and I took a small photo shoot for him and had too much fun haha!

lolol

We celebrated the birthday boy that evening! The cookie was too hard to put candles, so I shoved them into the sides where the ice cream was. 

The next day we went to The Hub for lunch. It was new and so neato! There were several different restaurants where you could eat, and a big open area in the center for entertaining. The decor was AWESOME, very retro modern, and the fonts on all the restaurants were all different yet modern and cohesive. A real treat for this design lover! 

Gordo, Honks, and moi

Typical Gord.

Besties!

I've said it before, I have an obsession with clouds. This one was no exception. 

Later that evening (I believe), we went to Bud and Alley's, one of mine and Caroline's old stomping grounds. Mainly hers, but whenever I was in town, we were here. 

A couple days later, Caroline brought over this lovely bday cake with little hamburgers and hot doggie decorations! How cute! 

And in preparation for Rachelpalooza 30th Anniversary Edition, sweet Honks made us this delicious meat treat! 

On Friday, we had planned a beach day! I knew Mollie and Colby were coming down, but then Binky and Ma surprised me!

They brought some fun beach toys, like this kite!

Binky tried so hard to get it to fly. 

Cold beers won out over kite flying. 

Ma selfie! Bink and mom brought me a crown, but I needed a hat, so I wore them both. 

Once Mollie and Colbs arrived, we tried to take a group pic. I wanted to be in the middle, but of course there was a sissy fight to see who would end up in that position.

Fine Tyra Banks' next top model, you be in the middle!

Of course we needed a Herring ladies pic!

Mom took a turn with the kite and had it flying in no time!

Wave!

I found a sea sponge! It was very interesting to me after several bday beers. 

Such a good day.

My mother brought several bday goodies, including a WHOLE ribeye AND petit fours from my favorite bakery in Dothan, Rolen's! SO GOOD!

Why yes, we did match for bday dinner night! 

That night we had reservations at Pandora's, then went to the bar that's on the other side of the restaurant. 

At midnight, I turned THIRTY! Wowza! 

I loved getting to celebrate with lots of my closest friends! 

Sissies!

Crazy sissies. 

Super crazy sissies. 

Wouldn't want to share birthday week with anyone else! 

Hilarious Honks in the brush pic with the next top model posing in front. 

After I posed with Honks, Colby needed a couples pic as well, and we got the best picture EVERRRRR:

Silly Binks. 

Model fo' sho.

We had too much fun! 

Saturday was a full day of Rachelpalooza awesomeness! I wanted to have a bonfire on the beach, along with hanging out with everyone in the sun, and sweet Honky delivered!

He got up at 7am to come down to the beach and staked out tent and spot for the day! How nice!

My sweet friends gave me lovely gifts, and Bink really pulled out all the stops with a bunch of these inflatable flamingo coozie floats! 

She also gave me this glorious doughnut float!! 

Excellent for picture taking. 

At some point, I clearly had had too much fun and excitement, so I took a lovely beach nap. I highly recommend this. 

Once the sun began to set, Honks set up the fire pit! EEE! 

We had to get some sunset pics!

Caroline did some beach yoga.

Katie came down to visit for the night! 

A much needed lazy Sunday was in order the next day.

That evening, we broke into the whole ribeye mom had given me for my birthday! Yum yum!

Meat, potatoes, and asparagus. The way to my heart! 

If you look in the background, Caroline put up pictures from our 25 year friendship around the room/house! Memories! 

YUMMMM

Soon enough it was cake time!

Note the match stick candles haha!

We had to get a photo of our American lovin' selves.

That night we played board games with our little friend fam. I forgot the name of it, but a questions was asked, then everyone wrote down an answer. The you went around the table and guessed who wrote what. The question for the answers below was "what do you do when you have house guests who won't leave your house after a party?" or something like that.

Mollie, Binky, and I all put "go to sleep" and Colbs and Honky hilariously put "cropdusting"! HAHA! Then Caroline came out of left field with "shank them". Note to self, don't stay past your welcome at Caroline's! 

It was time to go back to the real world the next week after the long Memorial Day weekend! I had the BEST birthday ever and love love loooooooved getting to spend it with my framily! (new word for friend family)