The definition of GNO

Friday night went down in the books as one of the BEST Girl's Nights Out ever. We'd been planning it for a while so we could make sure that we could all be there. Melissa didn't make dinner but she joined us for the most important part :)

The Old Spaghetti Factory is my favorite restaurant. I worked there for about 4 years growing up and you might think I'd be sick of the food/smell/atmosphere...but I'm not. I crave it. It was fun seeing each other in nice clothes. I'll explain in a minute. Our waiter was TOTALLY a Zac Efron clone. The weirdest thing is that his name was Zack. Crazy. So of course we needed a picture with him. I'm pretty sure he thought we (I) were (is) psycho. Dah well. Once I looked at the group picture, I was disappointed because he didn't look ANYthing like Efron. But at first glance, he's definitely a look-alike.

I have a special place in my heart for these girls. We lived in an apartment complex together and lived similar lives. We were young with young kids and we were POOR. We had such a fun time running into each other in the courtyard where we lived and had impromptu play groups on an almost daily basis. The best way to describe it was basically we lived in on-campus dorms but we had husbands and kids. We could walk across the hall and be at each others' apartments in just a few steps. We usually saw each other in sweats and scrubs--and that's why it was so fun to see each other all dolled up. We clean up pretty well :) We laughed together, cried together and served each other. I will ALWAYS love these girls and I hope we'll always be friends.

Stefanie had a sweet hook up at a hotel in Salt Lake so we headed over and checked in. This is where we started the PARTAY. It took us a whole 5 minutes to get into crazy mode. We played games, laughed our guts out, did impressions, read makeup articles in magazines, did pedicures, facials and stayed up way too late. I think the last time I looked at the clock it was 3:00. We talked about everything. It's so nice to have girls who I can relate to on so many levels. It was just what the doctor ordered. I missed Danny and Cole (well...the next day) but that night was just about being RaeLynn. I didn't have to focus on being a mom--I just got to be myself and that was really fun.

Do you like the top left picture of me in purple? That's what I looked like when I woke up! Soooo tired. I'm not a morning person, but I faked it so my friends would still like me.

One of the most memorable moments of the night was the self-timer group shots. It took a few times to get it right and mostly because of the weird positioning of the bed. It was so close up against the wall that all we could do was roll over the people on the bottom like a steam roller. At one point, I actually violated Jenna and laughed so hard that I cried until I stained the sheets with mascara. Sorry Jenna..heh. It wasn't my fault.

I already miss them. I think we should do this once a month.