Celebrating 40

After Jen's baby shower last weekend, I met up with a bunch of girls from work to celebrate Brenda's 40th birthday in downtown Denver. Oh my goodness, we had a blast! It's been awhile since I've "gone out" like that - dressed up, good dinner, drinks, and lots of girl time! We had so much fun laughing and swapping work stories and just getting away for a night.

We all piled into adjoining hotel rooms for the night so we didn't have to worry about driving back to Ft Collins late.......and I think that was some of the best time we had, just hanging out in the hotel room getting ready together. There were seriously like 5 girls stuffed in the bathroom at one point, putting eyeshadow on each other, swapping earrings and dresses and straightening each other's hair. It reminded me of being in college again, and what the dorm bathrooms looked like on a Friday night :) Super fun times, and great to get away from work with the girls I see all week and just be US!

Me and Lorrie pre-dinner.

The whole dinner crew - we figured out that we have 143 combined years of nursing between us - just in this group! How crazy is that. We went to dinner at The Rodizio, a Brazilian steakhouse - where they bring around huge skewers of meat and slice it off onto your plate as you ask for it. Really cool restaurant! I had never been to one of these before, but highly recommend it if you get the chance.

Brenda, the birthday girl, and Heidi. Now come on, does Brenda even LOOK 40?! These two are some of my faves to work with! We seriously laugh the entire shift together. It's such a blessing to have girlfriends like that at work.

We had a little surprise for Brenda - Elvis visited the restaurant and sang a few tunes!! Brenda was laughing so hard no noise was coming out :) Needless to say, she was totally caught off guard when he strolled up. This is a guy we work with in our department, who does Elvis impersonations on the side - so he was all about being part of her night!

Me and Gwen - another of my work BFFs :) Love her!

Nancy, me, Heidi and Beth - at a bar after dinner. We just sat around a huge high top table and talked. It was such a good time. I think it's so beneficial to get together with work friends outside of your job - much bonding!

Thanks to our painful feet after walking all over downtown Denver in heels, at one point we decided to stuff ourselves into a couple of these carts that were pulled by bicyclists!! We were laughing so hard as the guys pedaled us all over for 20 minutes.

Self portrait in our cart.

By the end of the night, looking a little tired! We stayed out until almost 2am, and let me just tell you - I am not as young as I once was :) I was dying to get in bed by about midnight!!

So, Happy Birthday B! What a blast to get to celebrate your milestone with you!

Looking forward to our next girls' night out!!