Girlfriend Getaway

Who knew that enrolling Connor in daycare almost 6 years ago would result in such amazing friendships with the Moms of his classmates? Julie (mother of Benjamin, Timothy, and Lily) and Michelle (mother of Brady and Tanner) have become my closest friends in Houston and we cherish our girl time together. We try to meet often for lunch while our kiddos are in school, but we just never seem to have enough time to finish our conversations.

We decided to plan a girlfriend getaway for the 3 of us while leaving the Daddies in charge of the kids. We talked about several different destinations but eventually decided on Canton during a First Monday Trades Days weekend. Michelle and I had been as teenagers but we knew Canton has changed a lot since then. Julie asked us what to expect, and the best way we could describe it was like a huge flea market. When we asked people about what types of things we could find there, the answer was always the same: "Everything!!"

Girls gone junkin!

We ended up planning our trip a little late and had trouble finding a place to stay. I happened to luck out and find a sweet lady that owned a coffee shop near Tyler and was just starting to rent out her newly renovated top floor. It sounded great so we booked the place sight unseen.

Champagne to toast our girls getaway!

The day finally came for us to embark on our girlfriend getaway. We followed my printed directions from the Internet but apparently it wasn't the most direct route. Add to that the fact that we were driving late at night, and it was a LONG drive. By the time we arrived at our destination, it was past midnight and we were in the middle of NOWHERE! At this point I was thinking to myself "What have we gotten ourselves into??" and I just knew Julie and Michelle would never again trust me to plan a trip for us. We wandered around outside the coffee house for about 20 minutes looking for a mailbox in the dark. And when I say it was dark, I really mean pitch black with no lights around anywhere. We had to use our cell phone camera flash to find our way around.

Using the cell phone camera flash to see in the pitch black night!

We finally found the mailbox with our room keys inside. When we entered the building, we were relieved in a major way. The top floor of the coffee house was just gorgeous with huge vaulted ceilings, modern fixtures, and beautiful and comfortable furnishings. When we woke the next morning, we were surrounded by beautiful, peaceful countryside. Things were looking up.

One of our rooms at Mt. Sylvan Coffee House. We highly recommend this place!

The second bedroom.

We had coffee and breakfast and hit the road for Canton. We arrived early and were immediately blown away by all the fun and cute things we saw there. We had so much fun that we ended up shopping there all day Friday AND Saturday!

Dinner after a LONG day of shopping.

Thanks to the wonderful accommodations, incredible shopping, and lots of girl time, our girlfriend getaway turned out to be highly successful. It's hard to say what the best part was, but I think it's safe to say we each felt rejuvenated from our weekend together. Our husbands (and wallets) might not be happy about it but I have a feeling we'll be making this trip again soon! :-)

Attempting to load the car with all our treasures.

We were quite proud of ourselves. It all fit with room to spare! We actually considered going back to shop for more...