40th & an Overnight

When Victoria was a baby I didn't leave her over night until she was more than a year old.  Can you believe that?!  Christian was about six months old before I let him go to Grandma's over night.  My third child?  He was the ripe ol' age of just about three weeks.

My friend Amanda, who I love and adore turned 40 just a couple weeks after I had Brecken.  My friends and I began planning her 40th birthday since she turned 39 last year.  It got a little tricky with my due date only two weeks prior. 

After a lot of talk about what, exactly, we'd do to celebrate we finally decided on a hotel room at Embassy Suites.  I got there before everyone else and had it decorated and when everyone arrived we celebrated with cocktails and apps for a couple hours.
Then we took the shuttle to Mall of America and had dinner at Cantina #1.  

Don't ask me why the waiters jumped in our one and only group pictures.

Don't ask me why we have one and only group shot on such a special night either.

After dinner we headed over to Dick's Last Resort for a drink or two and then went back to Cantina #1 when the DJ arrived.  We danced the night away....until 2am.

We had a blast and there aren't any pictures or video that are suitable for this blog;-)

We took the light rail back to the hotel.  I had never been on the light rail before and was amazed how it was just waiting for us and took us right to the hotel for free.

I said to Odelis at 2:30am while I had my heals in my hand, "Man, I didn't know the light rail was free!"

"It isn't.  We just didn't pay," she responded. 

"Oh, well, you'll have to teach me how to get on right sometime," I said.

I was just happy we all made it back to the hotel together!

I am so happy I did make it out to celebrate Amanda, even if I did have to pump several times through the festivities.

It was totally worth it.

I love when I'm listening to the radio now and a song comes on and I have a flashback of dancing with one of those crazy girls that night.  It was a ton of fun!