My Summer Cottage in Babylon: Still the Best Week Ever

Every year I find myself wanting to write pages and pages about my week in the Outer Banks with some of the best people on the planet, but every year I end up writing the same thing. We talked a lot. We laughed a lot. We ate a lot. There was knitting and copious amounts of wine consumption. There was the daily frolicking of the dolphins as we watched them from the upper deck of the house. Just like every year, it was paradise.

And really? I can't tell most of the stories that are worth telling. Some of them wouldn't make sense unless you were there. And some of them...well, what happens at BGW stays at BGW. So, I'm just gong to throw a million pictures at you instead. I promise you'll be rewarded for your patience at the end.

My sister Hailie, my cousin Renae, my friend Lindsey, my (insert appropriate label here) Marianne, and I left Maryland early Saturday morning. We made a pit stop in Virginia to visit our friend Brie, who wasn't able to make it this year.

After six hours, we made it to the beach.

Lindsey, who owned a cupcakery that just so happened to be featured on The Bachelor this season, made the official cupcake of Bad Girls' Week. Coconut lime. And they are divine. (I'm a poet and didn't know it.)

Chris, who is a cosmetologist AND a masseuse, stayed busy all week.

I got a hair cut AND a massage. My favorite part was when she she beat me up at the end. I think if I get a massage again in the future, I'll ask them to skip all the rubbing and just spend the whole thirty minutes punching and karate chopping me. No, seriously.

The famous giant boobs made an appearance. Of course.

At least she doesn't sparkle.

There was a baby this year. Technically, he was there last year, too.

But he was a fetus, and we couldn't eat his chubby thighs.

Best lunch ever. Five of us ordered every single appetizer at a little wine and cheese place.

And ate all of it.

One of the nights we all got dolled up and went to dinner at Dirty Dick's Crab House. It's not really a wear your formal wear sort of place--I mean, there are rolls of paper towels on the tables-- but seventeen of us showed up in our finery anyway. It was so much fun, and the food was great. And really, we were doing them a favor. It's the off season. We were pretty much the only people in the whole place. Seventeen women in ball gowns and cocktail dresses showing up was probably the most exciting to happen to them all winter.