Battle of the Bulges

So last night was an absolute BLAST. My best friend ended up being able to come (YAY)so we had 8 hot chicas on our way to our awesome city’s Inner Harbor. The night started around 7 with Dasha searching out the signs on the drive down (we live about 20-30 minutes north of the city). Of course, the rest of us knew where we were going so it was fun to watch her face. Well, as soon as we entered downtown, the volume in the vehicle (that’s for you Mel) got higher and higher. Squealing, pointing, oohing and aaahing… you name it - whatever you as a tourist have done or what you have seen tourists do, especially US first timers, they did it. It was soo sweet, funny but I think most of all refreshing. So we parked and on the walk to the Cheesecake Factory, the girls were camera happy. “Make of picture of me here… in front of this… OH, here… oh PLEASE, PLEASE make me a picture of this”. So cute. I don’t know how but we finally made it to the restaraunt. So the plan was to put our name in at Cheesecake Factory and then decide what we wanted to do. The wait was for 1.5 to 2 hours!! But what else could you expect on a Friday night, right?

So we met together and talked for few minutes on some of our options… paddle boats, walking to see all the shops, aquarium… Decision time. Melissa took 4 of the girls to go walking around and I took Dasha and Julia to do the paddle boats. OMG I was so nervous because Dasha is a “rocker” and I know she would not mind getting a little wet. With the threat of death looming over her head, Dasha behaved and we paddled (actually THEY paddled) and enjoyed the setting of the sun. Aah, such a beautiful time. Our 30 minutes was up so we headed back and I went inside CF to see how long our wait was. Still about an hour. So we walked down a little ways to where there was a circle of people around these amazing young girls who were making the most beautiful music on drums and other things (I’ll have to ask Mel what exactly it was because she knows everything about that stuff). We watched and danced and laughed. The girls kept saying “thank you Tina”… it’s gonna be hard to send these kids home, I’ll tell ya. Oh but they also kept saying “sorry Tina, we’re going home to pack up our stuff and moving here”. Ha ha! So much love!

It was coming close to that time where we might actually get seated so we headed back to wait for our buzzer to bzzz. While we were waiting we decided to take some photo ops and ha ha, while I was taking a picture of the girls, some guy walked behind me slowly and said “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN” while motioning to my butt with his hands. Apparently his eyes were on my lower parts the entire time he walked away. The hysterical part is that I was OBLIVIOUS to it all!!!!! My friends had to tell me why they were CRACKING UP while I was taking their picture. Isn’t that a riot? Yup, I STILL got it… hahahahahahahaha. Moving on.

A little bit more time has passed and finally we’re being seated. I’m gonna ffwd to the food. I got the fish and chips and have NO idea how many points (someone HELP) but asked for a box at the beginning so I could pack away half, actually 3/4 of the fish and 1/2 of the fries. The cheesecake I got was better than sssssssssssssssssssandwiches! Brownie sundae cheesecake… I ate about 5/6ths of it which I figure is about 20 points worth. I had 10 points left from my day and 28 flex points so I think it’s safe to say that I cleaned house last night. I’m going to stay OP for the rest of this week (start over Tuesday) just so I don’t blow it. I didn’t count activity or anything.. we did a few hours of walking at least. If someone has a better calculation on what I ate, let me know!

We had one more stop to make before the night was over. We piled in the car, drove to Fell’s Point and did some more walking and people watching. There was a dance school set up in the center of the little park area and the students (presumably) were giving us a ballroom show. Pretty cool. We did a little bit more walking by all the closed shops and then stopping for a while by the water. We just sat there taking pictures, watching the boats, enjoying the moment. It was such a great time! Our exotic supermodels had attracted a bunch of attention (to say the least). I felt so young again and my bff and I kept joking that all the stares we were getting, some were actually for us too. But hey, I think out of the 100’s of guys that checked them out, at least 1 kinda glanced our way too. HEE HEE.

The night ended back at my house at 2AM (thanks Mel for driving!!!!) with the girls all hugging and saying “thank you so much Tina for this night” just inside the front door. I am so happy that I could be a part of this experience. Aaah, I feel my eyes tearin’ up a little. Ok, sorry this post was so long and if I bored some with my long recaps. Just wanted to share my day w/ ya’ll. Hope you’re havin’ a great weekend!

ps. Once Mel uploads the pictures from her camera, I’ll get a few on my site.

Ok, so I know that’s not English at it’s finest but I DON’T CARE. :o) First my rambling… So last night was so much fun. I left work to go shopping for Dasha’s present because her birthday is on Sunday - we are all celebrating downtown tonight though at the Cheesecake Factory and ESPN Zone). Anyway, Dasha’s a bit of a tomboy and during one of our late night convos on the balconies, she mentioned that with her first few checks a few things that she was very excited about buying. I made mental notes - don’t you love that, when you remember what someone REALLY wanted, not just something you *think* they’d like. So I was walking around Toys R Us kind of aimlessly until I spotted the section on skateboards. I was NOT excited at all. Dora, Spiderman & Junkyard Dog. Um, eww! THEN I noticed the bikes and totally had a “back on the balcony conversation” recall. A bike was another one of those things on her list. Now I was debating whether or not it was worth it (bringing it back, would the girls want to be in on this present with me b/c we had decided on the skateboard, etc). So I told the very young but nice sales guy who had to listen to my indecisive babbling for 20 minutes that I would think about it and come back. In the meantime I headed over to Dick’s Sporting Goods to check out the skateboard selection. I think I was in there for about 30 seconds and knew what the right thing was. I headed back to Toys and found the very nice sales guy and said “I want a bike”. I picked out a Jeep mountain bike, blue and black. Very pretty but not so girly if you know what I mean. The fun part was getting it into my Camry. I swear I earned at least one activity point yesterday doing this alone. Then, success! Got the bike home and decided to stow it in the laundry room downstairs, hoping Dasha wouldn’t stumble upon it. The girls (not Dasha) that FINALLY came home said they thought it would be a good idea to give to her last night because she may find it and ruin the surprise. So we came up with the idea of having an impromptu birthday bash for Dasha. We got some decorations, put on some music and the girls taught me a national Greek and Bulgarian dances while we waited. We did this for about an hour - I LOVE to dance and haven’t for so long! I think I’m going thru my “I wanna learn to salsa” phase again but I digress. We waited and waited for her to come home and then found out from one of the other girls that had just arrived home from work that Dasha was going out with some friends. I couldn’t believe we had a no show! But then I got a hold of a friend who got a hold of her friend and together they concocted a pretty brilliant story which got her back to my house. She came inside was SO surprised and if you could have seen her face light up and the way she hugged us all and then how quickly she jumped on her bike and sped up and down the street on it… it was worth every “I stayed up too late” stretch and “OMG, I’m so tired” groan!

Oh yeah, the compliment. So of course all my exchange students are stunners, exotic looking and SKINNY. I get so mad when the 100 lb-er says “I’m getting fat”… ARRGH. Well anyway, I was explaining to them a little about WW and how the points work, etc. They were very interested in this. But the compliment came when Olha said “Tina, you are the same like us… we don’t see you walking down the street and say OH, THERE is Tina coming.. you look like us, you look good!” Granted, I know I don’t look like a supermodel but hell, I’ll take the compliments when they come!

Ok, so I know that’s not English at it’s finest but I DON’T CARE. :o) First my rambling… So last night was so much fun. I left work to go shopping for Dasha’s present because her birthday is on Sunday - we are all celebrating downtown tonight though at the Cheesecake Factory and ESPN Zone). Anyway, Dasha’s a bit of a tomboy and during one of our late night convos on the balconies, she mentioned that with her first few checks a few things that she was very excited about buying. I made mental notes - don’t you love that, when you remember what someone REALLY wanted, not just something you *think* they’d like. So I was walking around Toys R Us kind of aimlessly until I spotted the section on skateboards. I was NOT excited at all. Dora, Spiderman & Junkyard Dog. Um, eww! THEN I noticed the bikes and totally had a “back on the balcony conversation” recall. A bike was another one of those things on her list. Now I was debating whether or not it was worth it (bringing it back, would the girls want to be in on this present with me b/c we had decided on the skateboard, etc). So I told the very young but nice sales guy who had to listen to my indecisive babbling for 20 minutes that I would think about it and come back. In the meantime I headed over to Dick’s Sporting Goods to check out the skateboard selection. I think I was in there for about 30 seconds and knew what the right thing was. I headed back to Toys and found the very nice sales guy and said “I want a bike”. I picked out a Jeep mountain bike, blue and black. Very pretty but not so girly if you know what I mean. The fun part was getting it into my Camry. I swear I earned at least one activity point yesterday doing this alone. Then, success! Got the bike home and decided to stow it in the laundry room downstairs, hoping Dasha wouldn’t stumble upon it. The girls (not Dasha) that FINALLY came home said they thought it would be a good idea to give to her last night because she may find it and ruin the surprise. So we came up with the idea of having an impromptu birthday bash for Dasha. We got some decorations, put on some music and the girls taught me a national Greek and Bulgarian dances while we waited. We did this for about an hour - I LOVE to dance and haven’t for so long! I think I’m going thru my “I wanna learn to salsa” phase again but I digress. We waited and waited for her to come home and then found out from one of the other girls that had just arrived home from work that Dasha was going out with some friends. I couldn’t believe we had a no show! But then I got a hold of a friend who got a hold of her friend and together they concocted a pretty brilliant story which got her back to my house. She came inside was SO surprised and if you could have seen her face light up and the way she hugged us all and then how quickly she jumped on her bike and sped up and down the street on it… it was worth every “I stayed up too late” stretch and “OMG, I’m so tired” groan!

Oh yeah, the compliment. So of course all my exchange students are stunners, exotic looking and SKINNY. I get so mad when the 100 lb-er says “I’m getting fat”… ARRGH. Well anyway, I was explaining to them a little about WW and how the points work, etc. They were very interested in this. But the compliment came when Olha said “Tina, you are the same like us… we don’t see you walking down the street and say OH, THERE is Tina coming.. you look like us, you look good!” Granted, I know I don’t look like a supermodel but hell, I’ll take the compliments when they come!