Indianapolis Recap: Tuesday!

So Kaelah and I are back from our little midweek girls' trip, and I thought it'd be fun to share a little bit of what we did! You may have already read her Things I Love Thursday post where she shared what we did Tuesday night, but I'll share my side too :)

First, a quick recap of Monday. We got in Monday afternoon, with perfect timing too! We pulled into the hotel parking lot within five minutes of each other, checked in, and headed to our room. We hauled our stuff to our room, and headed to the closest restaurant possible (Cracker Barrel, my first time!!). We ended the night at a little dive bar recommended to us by one of Kaelah's friends in Broad Ripple, where we downed a few New Old Ladies and chatted about everything possible. More on that later :)

Tuesday we headed back to Broad Ripple for a late breakfast, and ended up at 3 Sisters Cafe.
We both had Vanilla Bean French Toast and hash browns. So so good. After breakfast we checked out a handful of local boutiques and tried on some adorable dresses.
We headed downtown in hopes of trying Circle City Sweets (someone recommended the macaroons, and since I've never had one we knew we had to give it a shot!). Unfortunately, sommmmmeone (me) can't read a map and we walked right past it (a couple times), and by that time it was closed. No macaroons for me :( We hopped back in my car and decided to find a tattoo parlor...
Kaelah googled local shops and we planned on going down the line to check them all out. We had popped into one in Broad Ripple earlier but they didn't do the type of tattoo we were looking for. Lo and behold, the first shop we checked out was absolutely perfect!
We ended up at Irish Ink, and talked to Ben McQueen about our idea. He was into it, and had time to squeeze us in, so we left to give him some time to draw up our idea. 

I was super nervous beforehand, I haven't been tattooed in a few years and was nervous I picked a painful area. But as soon as he started, I was totally fine. It was over pretty quick, and then Kaelah was up. 
Remember when I said that Monday night we ended up at a little dive bar drinking New Old Ladies? We were drinking our cocktails and mulling over tattoo ideas. We've known for quite a while that we wanted to get matching bestie tattoos, but the perfect idea never appeared. We knew we wanted it to be kinda silly, but meaningful to us, but we just couldn't decide. Then, all of a sudden, a light bulb went off. We came up with this idea, sailor girls with "New Old Lady" written underneath it. It's so perfect, exactly the style we wanted and it ties into something we always do together :) I hope that doesn't make us sound like lushes, haha.

We headed from the tattoo shop to the Indiana State Fair, ate some crappy fried food, saw a bunch of cows, and had a blast. We we're exhausted, so we headed back to the hotel and called it a night. Tuesday was pretty packed full of fun, and I couldn't be happier with our bestie tattoos! I'll be back soon with Wednesday :)

New city + new friends. (image heavy!)

Yesterday morning Chris and I woke up before the sun because we had a big day planned. We got on the road and headed south. We were on our way to meet some new friends who feel like old ones, enjoy a new city, and relax.

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A few weeks ago Kaelah and I decided it was time for the four of us to meet. It was the first time that I've ever met a blog friend, so I was a little nervous! We decided to meet (sort of ) in the middle in Louisville, Kentucky. Chris and I had never been there, and neither had Kaelah and Mike. They went down a day early and were able to explore Louisville and plan the next day's events. I'm so thankful they were able to do that! I know I am definitely not naturally adventurous, I have to force myself to explore, but Kaelah and Mike did an awesome job of getting to know the area and discovering cute and fun things to do. 

Chris and I got on the road at 6:15 am (!!!) and nearly instantly got lost, which is ridiculous because we weren't even out of Illinois yet, these are roads I drive often, but somehow I missed my exit and we had to go way out of our way to get back on track. Luckily we downloaded the MapQuest app while we were driving and the lovely lady robot was able to reroute us. We basically drove across all of Indiana, and by noon (1pm in Kentucky) we arrived. We checked into our hotel room, fixed ourselves up a bit, and got in touch with Kaelah and Mike. The plan was to meet at the Louisville Zoo, so we got directions and set off. 

Chris and I got there first, and we sat on a bench to wait for Mike and Kaelah. It was weird how not-weird it was. I kept thinking to myself "This is a pretty weird thing to do, meet someone on the internet and drive six hours to meet them in a random city you've never been to", but it really didn't feel that way. Kaelah and I had never talked in real life, just emails and texts, but I felt like we were already friends. When they pulled up I waved and got really excited about the day ahead of us. 

We got our tickets and went into the zoo and started exploring. I was feeling a little out of it, it might have been nerves or it might have been because I hadn't eaten anything yet (besides my morning coffee), but even though I think we all felt a little shy and awkward we got along well and were having a really good time. 

After the zoo we went to eat. We ventured down to Bardstown Road, an area Mike and Kaelah had heard good reviews of and visited the day before. The first place we tried to eat was a bust, but just down the road we found an awesome little microbrewery called Cumberland Brews. The boys got to try some good beer, and we all had fantastic dinners. While the boys waited to pay Kaelah and I walked across the street to a cute little boutique. It was nice to have a little bit of girl time. We talked about blogging and future plans and looked at gorgeous dresses. 

We headed back to the restaurant to get the boys and walk around a little bit. After an impromptu photo shoot (the product of which is lotttts of silly face photos!), Kaelah and Mike decided it was time for them to get on the road. We said our goodbyes and all agreed that we need to meet up again.

Chris and I went back to the hotel and crashed. We wanted to go out, but we were so unbelievably tired from all the driving and excitement that we both passed out for about four hours. We ordered pizza to our room, ate in bed, and went back to sleep. We got back on the road around 10 am and headed home. We wanted to stop and do something fun along the way, but nothing sounded too appealing. Now we're home, catching up on snuggling with Mr. Littlejeans, and enjoying some downtime.

All in all, it was a wonderful little trip. We're both so glad to have met Kaelah and Mike, they're hilarious and adorable and I am so thankful that they were into meeting up with us. And on a sidenote: Kaelah is even cuter in person... Just fyi!! :P

I'll leave you with a handful of photos from yesterday. Click here to see a few more...!