party like a rock star

this weekend, before we adopted padfoot, i was in hershey hanging out with one of my besties.  nicole and i grew up together, and we have been friends since about the 8th grade.  she was one of my bridesmaids, and she is just generally one of my favorite people.

nicole is single mom to a really cute little boy.  he is 6 years old.  nicole is a widow.  her husband died 5 1/2 years ago from a sudden heart attack.  if you do the math, nicole had a 6-month-old baby when her husband died.  while she obviously still grieves for scott, she has handled the life she was given with grace and humor, and i admire her so much.  she is raising her son to be a wonderful boy.

however, because she is truly a single mom who doesn't even get a break every other weekend like many others, she gets overwhelmed and sometimes she just needs a girls' night out.  for that, i am happy to oblige.  so every few months, i take a trip back to hershey and the two of us go out.  and that was this weekend.  and, boy, did we ever go out.

we started our night off with shopping.  i had a few christmas gifts i needed to exchange at the outlets, so we headed over.  did you guys know that the ann taylor loft store in the mall has completely different clothing than the loft outlet?  well, it does, and the loft outlet is incredible.  i exchanged a sweater and also got a really cute dress.  the sweater was $13 (but free, as an even exchange) and the dress was originally $80, marked down to $35, further reduced to $27.  score!

after that we headed to troegs.  troegs is a local brewery.  they used to operate out of harrisburg, but recently moved to hershey after my step-father sold them an old hershey meat-packaging factory (go, jeff!).  it opened at thanksgiving, but so far we hadn't had a chance to go.  the brewery and tasting room is a huge space and it looks great inside.  i definitely want to go back and get a tour and see the whole operation.

troegs logo

the bar and tasting room

after we had a beer at troegs, our plan was initially to head out to lancaster.  but while we were sitting there, we decided we didn't want to drive all the way to lancaster (it's about 45 minutes), so nicole suggested the casino.  the casino has been open for probably 4 years and i had not been there yet, so i was definitely game.

hollywood casino

our first stop was the steakhouse, since i hadn't eaten a thing all day, and we had dinner and a drink (an amazing pear martini - yum!).  after that we headed to the dance floor where a live band was playing.  you guys, i had so much fun.  i cannot tell you the last time i had a full-on dance party like that.  we were planning to head home around midnight.  yeah...we didn't leave until about 2:30am.  we had a blast!  we also met a group of guys who were really fun, and the one guy actually went to bloomsburg with me!  i didn't know him at bloom, but it was fun to talk about the campus and professors and stuff.  when we left, i made nicole go back to get his number, because he was just adorable.  i hope she calls him!

my and my girl

anyway, yesterday, i was really feeling the 4+ hours we spent on the dance floor!  and on sunday, even though i only had 2 drinks all night, i felt like a mac truck hit me.  i think it was because of all the yelling we had to do over the band, and also because they allow smoking in the casino.  but my whole body was sore yesterday, and it really has me thinking i need to take some sort of dance class for exercise.  i used to swear i would never do zumba, but now i'm starting to reconsider...