Another shopping weekend!

I have the BEST husband ever!!!  He watched the kids for 2 weekends in a row to let me go shopping out of town.  July  19 – 21 I headed to Orlando for a fun filled shopping weekend with Janan, Tara and Cathy.  We were so excited to go shopping, eat lots of great food and have no kids.  Don’t get me wrong we love our kids but sometimes we just need to get away and get refreshed and feel that we are normal.

We didn’t have much of an agenda but we were just going to be flexible and have fun.  Our first stop was IKEA.  I had a few things I needed and the others did a little shopping as well – well except for Janan.  This is how we found her in the marketplace.

Before we even checked into our hotel Friday, we stopped at an outlet mall for some shopping.  This place was crowded, but we were still able to find some great deals.  Not sure what the conversation going on here was, but it makes for a great picture.

 We shopped so long Friday that a lot of the restaurants were packed and of course we weren’t picky.  Our only requests were not a chain and not something we have in Jacksonville.  We decided on Ono Pizza.  The great thing about going off with girls is that a lot of food sharing is done.  Tara and I are huge Dr. Pepper drinkers – yes it is our weakness.  Well, Ono didn’t have Dr Pepper but had it in a 2 liter so we asked if we could just buy the 2 liter and drink that.  The waitress probably thought we were crazy, but went with it.

Ono also had a cool computer screen on the table where you order your appetizers and desserts and can even pay.  Very cool concept.

Saturday morning we headed to another Outlet mall for some more shopping.  I was in search for Brody some school shoes so I sent Jason this picture to make sure he liked them.  Jason’s response was yes he liked them and Trevor said “don’t forget I need school shoes too”.  Sweet boy!! 

Off to find lunch and we found Urban Hibachi.  Wasn’t exactly what we thought but turned out great.  They cooked the food on the hibachi and then brought it out to us.  Very contemporary place and great food.  With bellies full we headed to the Florida Mall.  This place was packed as well.

It was time for dinner but we felt like we had just eaten lunch so weren’t extremely hungry.  It feels like all we did was think of food – but it was so fun.  I think this was one of our best picks for food – Café’ Tu Tu Tango.  It was one of the coolest places.  

There was a ton of artwork for sale on the walls that was painted by an artist at the front.  All of the food is in appetizer sizes.  They suggest you order 2 or 3 per person so you can try different items.  Since we weren’t that hungry we order 5 for the 4 of us – jalepeno mac n cheese, chicken egg rolls, chicken flatbread, spicy shrimp, and hummus.  We also had dessert – banana pizza.  It was pretty yummy.

Several times during our meal flamenco dancers would come out for entertainment.  One time they came around in a congo line and Janan couldn’t help herself so she joined them.

 

It was a great night of laughs ie “Who knew” and bachelorette party to name a couple. Throughout the entire weekend, Janan was known to be the one to call a restaurant real quick and ask the following “price range, where are you located, type of food, how long is the wait, maybe even what kind of carpet you have (just kidding), but she definitely asked it all”.  I would just look up everything on Yelp to find out info.  I think she may need a lesson in Yelp J

With all of our great finds – needing to consolidate before we leave the next day.

This was a sight to see – us trying to pack up my car with all of our shopping plus planning for a 7ft shelf Tara wanted to buy at IKEA.  We were determined to make it all fit.

 

I also wanted to stop here

 

which has only been opened for a couple of months.  I was pretty excited to get some shelving for my new laundry room.  Thankfully it all fit.

After one more meal we headed home.  We had such a great weekend and I am so thankful to have such great friends.  It was good to get away and spend some girl time together.  It always feel good to talk about stuff that is going on in our lives and realize that we are perfectly normal.  Thanks girls for a great weekend – it was full of great memories and definitely full of laughs.