Living young, wild, and free!

The second annual Hangmaids Beach Week is coming, it will be crazy, immature, wildly inappropriate, and probably dangerous, but most of all it's going to be a whole hell of a lot of fun. This all started a few years ago when I was fortunate enough to be in my best friend Hannah’s wedding.  This was one of those weddings where everyone involved were friends in some capacity. It wasn’t like “oh this is my second cousin from Florida who I only met today” type situations. We all basically grew up together. The cast goes as follows, Hannah’s two sisters, Sarah and Stephanie, Hannah’s Cousin Laura then friends, Jordan, Elyce, Jess and I. Then our friends Meredith and Beth were honorary bridesmaids. We had a blast at the wedding, we all got crazy, we all danced, we all partied until the night was over. This is how the hangmaids got their start. Now let me tell you how we got our name. We all loved the movies the The Hangover and Bridesmaids. Since we loved those movies I thought, “why not just combine the names of the movies into something glorious?” I jumped right in thinking of different combos. We needed a moniker that spoke volumes. I didn’t want us to just be known as “Hannah’s Bridesmaids” we needed something edgier. So being the wonderful nickname tress that I am, I came up with the Hangmaids. It was a perfect fit. We were all crazy just like the characters in those movies, but we are also fiercely loyal to each other just like they were. We have called ourselves the Hangmaids ever since.

After the wedding, most all of the girls involved, including the bride, decided that we needed to start celebrating our lives together with an annual vacation. So everyone minus Sarah (because she was only 17 at the time, don’t worry Sarah you can come when your legal!) and Laura (because she’s a mommy) started thinking of what we could do for a vacation. Meredith told us that her parents had recently purchased a beach house in Myrtle Beach, SC. So last year, all of the hangmaids that could took a trip down to Myrtle to celebrate our pure awesomeness. It felt like we were all seniors in high school again. Being rebellious and just doing what we pleased. We stayed out on the beach until it rained every single day. We even stayed so late one day that we got caught in a thunderstorm. The nighttime was just as eventful as the day. There were a few incidents with a water fountain, refrigerator magnets, a big toe, and a hole in the wall. Doesn’t that sound like some of Stu, Alan, and Phil’s shenanigans? (If you don’t know who they are, then you clearly have no idea what this whole blog is about.) Some of us went on a pirate voyage, while others got lost in shopping bags. (Not literally of course, we aren’t cats) We watched the summer Olympics like it was our job. I don’t think we turned the channel once the whole time we were down there. We were really channeling our American spirit (Team America, F yeah). Oh except for Sunday night when we flipped it over to HBO to watch True Blood. (Seriously, who doesn’t love the Vamps?) We all went down to the strip (Myrtle Beach's finest attraction); some of us even got airbrushed t-shirts and hats. We had a family game night (which got embarrassing as usual) we had our fair share of “lady disagreements” but who doesn’t with their friends? Overall, I wouldn’t trade this trip for anything in the world. It was a tremendous success and we vowed to make sure we do it each year. 

It’s pretty remarkable when you can get all of your friends together to make memories that will last a lifetime. I cherish each one of those memories just as much as I cherish my friendships with these wonderful women. I wouldn’t be who I am today without them and to be quite honest; I wouldn’t have it any other way. When I am with them I feel whole. That is very comforting to me, even if were miles away from our actual homes, I always feel at home with them. Most of all, we can be as crazy as we want to be all the time because that’s just who we are. We are the Hangmaids.

We are young, we are definitely wild, and we are free.