Flip flops & ice cream cake start us off right

There are few things that make me happier than flip flops and 70+ degrees...and a girls' weekend...and shopping...and a client hit in Every Day with Rachael Ray today. Woo hoo! I try to get to Charlotte to visit my college friend Jen a couple times a year. Last time I was here was for my bachelorette weekend a year ago, so I'm overdue. Usually I visit right before Fall and just before Spring to prolong warm weather for as long as I can have it. This is the first time I've flown in, though (hooray for business trips!). I'm used to easing in to the South via a long solo drive down 77 to good tunes. Can't beat a 1.5 hour flight after work though.

Jen and I are buds from our time at Kent State. We were paired up on a team of seven for the ridiculously intensive PR Case Study class and bonded over pints of ice cream during late nights in my dorm room (nerds) and cruises around campus in Jen's VW Cabrio convertible to DMB, Tonic, Pete Yorn and the like. I earned the "affectionate" nickname Stalin from my teammates that year (hey, we won the competition), and Jen and I have remained close friends. I've stayed in every place she's lived in Charlotte (five?) since she relocated here in 2001, and we were each in the other's wedding.

Jen was an intern at D&E when we got to know each other and became friends with my now co-worker Lisa. When Jen and I started planning this visit, I roped Lisa into coming along too, which prompted the three of us to brainstorm on how we could all possibly work together professionally since Jen works in marketing at the Lowe's corporate office. Thus, girls' weekend morphed into the Mullet Trip.

Tomorrow's our meeting at Lowe's and dinner out. Saturday is our big night out with a bunch of girls, some of whom I've come to know from my visits and some I haven't met yet. Lisa's cousin and some friends from my high school who have relocated here also will be meeting us out, so it will be quite the gaggle of girls out on the town.