Lucky Lucky Beach Bum

I recently had the privilege of road-tripping to the shore with eleven of my close friends (minus Denise and Joce, boooo) that I graduated with from U.Va. A year in the making, the trip had been christened “Temptation Cottage” – which several of us {lovingly} later renamed “No-Option Cottage”… because man-oh-man, I swear that I have never been in the midst of such an amazing, hilarious, slightly OCD, {insanely platonic} group of friends EVER.

Last night as I recapped the second half of the trip to a friend who departed early, she commented that my renditions of the happenings at the shore were just as entertaining, if not more so, than experiencing them first-hand. And thus, I decided that after another [accidental] hiatus from LiL, I would have a little story time of lessons learned at the beach, and labels that I am glad I share with so many of my friends…. and a few labels that I’m okay not sharing.

Organized: this is the only group of people I know that required multiple doodle polls, a 100-email thread, and 2 months notice to pull together a weekend trip. However, this is also the only group of people I know that pre-plan drunk food 12 hours in advance, which possibly proved to be the most ingenious thing I have ever witnessed.

Wholesome: rather than eating Tostitos for breakfast, we had greek yogurt, oatmeal, cereal, fruit, whole wheat toast, and eggs available each morning. Some of us were so exuberant about eating such wholesome foods that oatmeal ‘confetti’ resulted.

let it rain whole grain

Sneaky: a widespread drink-mixing “secret” of the week was doubling the alcoholic ingredients and halving the nonalcoholic ones.  (That’s a resulting 4:1 ratio, for all you non-math mixologist majors)

our measurements were slightly skewed from this, to put it delicately.

Resourceful: we make up our games (or elaborate on those from New Girl), re-use liquor bottles as water bottles (one earth!), and efficiently do household chores at 1am.

Freaks: in the most lovable, endearing ways possible, of course.  Example: I spent half the week wrapped in towels on the beach because I was cold. At the beach. In July. While my friends in DC experienced the most severe heatwave in the city’s history.

Super sexy beach pix, obvi.

Caring: we love each other a lot. If you’re struggling, we’ll help you. Well… we will take your photo first, and record extensive video… but then we’ll help you.

umbrella fail.

tidal wave fail, aka. “revenge of Poseidon”

{Wannabe} Rebels: temporary tattoos all around.

super scandalous, right?

Hoarders: some of us hoard bathing suits. Others hoard alcohol… in their stomachs. And then there are those that hoard their friend’s dentist’s promotional chapstick and then offer it back to you two and a half years later. (true story)

Cooks: from homestyle breakfast to family dinners to late night grilled cheese, we’re blessed with several friends with solid culinary inclinations.

family dinners and self timers

Not Cooks: this can be recognized at many different times, with the most obvious being when you have that one friend that decides to make a late-night s’more directly on the stove.

Talented: did you know the next Nastia Luikin is one of my closest friends? Neither did I.

Perfect 10

Best friends:

well, for the most part.

The coolest cluster of people I have ever known:

we run this [into the ground]