During most of my junior high and high school years I spent my time outside of school with kids that were at least one or more grades older than me (Except Amy of course, have you noticed Amy has been in tagged in 7 of my last 10 posts? We were pretty much attached at the hip for our childhood.) That changed right around my junior year, a lot of my older friends had graduated or were getting ready to graduate and it was time for me and Amy to find some new friends or only hang out with each other until our older friends came home for Christmas break. Enter Mellencamp party of 8.
Mellencamp Party of 8 refers to a group of girls that went on our Senior Spring break trip to Pensacola, Florida together. That's right, not Panama City or Daytona Beach, we went to hot spot Pensacola Florida and we had a blast. We called the group Mellencamp party of 8 because my friend Becky (Rebeka now) LOVED John Mellencamp and she insisted that when we went out to eat that we tell them the name was Mellencamp and we had 8 girls go on the trip, so we forever after refered to ourselves at Mellencamp Party of 8. Now its time for full disclosure, when my friend Becky would talk about her love of John Mellencamp and insistence that we use that name at restaurants I went along with it but I had no idea who John Mellencamp was. I had heard the name before and I eventually figured out that I did know some of his songs but I'm terrible about putting the artist and song together so I pretty much just nodded and smiled. (
For my music fanatic friends just know I am hanging my head in shame as I write this, I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment!)
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| Putting on sunscreen once in an 8 hour period isn't enough? |
So I'm sure you're wondering how we ended up in the exciting destination city of Pensacola Beach. Well you see my parents were not all about me going on a totally unsupervised trip to Florida and every year for Spring Break we would go visit my grandparents in Pensacola. So my parents said I could get a group of friends together and we could rent a house on the beach. They would help us drive down and stay about an hour's drive away at my grandparents' house so that we could have our freedom but still have parents close by in case we needed them. It turned out a lot of my friends had parents who were also not crazy about them going on a long road trip totally unsupervised and so we became, Mellencamp Party of 8.
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| Trying to teach the booty shake... |
It was a great week with a fantastic group of girls. We had a cute 3 bedroom house that was just a couple minutes walk from the beach. Some of the highlights were learning how to belly dance from a tape someone brought, watching Becky show Amy how to shake her booty, renting the movie "Where the Heart Is" and watching it at least 4 or 5 times that week, being ridiculously slap happy almost every night, and getting all dressed up our last night to go to Waffle House! I'll also never forget going with Ryane to pick up two of our friends who had wanted to go to a club one night and well one of them got caught doing something Ryane didn't approve of and she let her opinion be known to the whole street while wearing her tie-dye shirt and boxer shorts. Then Ryane was so mad on the way back to the house that she about ripped some guy's head off who tried to hit on her at the gas station. The funniest part of that whole experience was getting to hear Ryane retell the story in her very dramatic ways. You really had to be there, but if they are reading this my girls know what I'm talking about and they're probably laughing thinking about Ryane showing us how she pumped the gas.
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| Becky and Ryane doing ??? |
It was also through my friend Ryane that we learned Florida has some pretty crazy driving laws. The second night we were there she got in a car accident with a Marine as she was turning into our driveway. Apparently in Florida when you are making a left hand turn on a two lane road you have to look
behind you to make sure no one is
passing you on your left before you turn. If they do try to pass you on the left (in a two lane road) and you hit them, you will be at fault! Turns out it was a pretty good idea to have parent close by when you're having to deal with weird Florida traffic laws and an uninsured Marine.
(For the record I have absolutely nothing against Marines, I'm very thankful for the service, but this seemed like a pretty shady situation.)
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| All dressed up for a night at Waffle House! |
Besides the accident and what will forever be known as the "Sally incident" it was a really great week. We had lots of fun and it didn't take long before we could laugh at even the more "tense" moments of our trip. I love those girls and am so thankful for their friendship and all the fun memories that we made on that trip. Also Amy and Christina I hope that now 11 years later you have both learned the importance of reapplying the sunscreen!
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