Girls Weekend Recap - Part III - Saved the Best for Last

So, Friday night, I had prepared Carmel French Toast that I baked Saturday morning for the girls and the family. The recipe is included at the bottom of this post. I wish I had taken pictures, maybe next time...

Anyway, after a big breakfast, the girls and I headed to Lowe's Motor Speedway. Now, none of us are into NASCAR, but we all thought that for $5 a tour with a drive around the track would be fun. It was FREEZING outside, but we went anyway. We hopped in a van with about 8 other people and headed out for the tour. Our tour guide was great. He showed us everything and explained what things were. He drove onto the track and up one of the corners for us to feel the banking of the track. Then, he proceeded to drive the van at about 80 mph around the track one time. It was pretty cool. But, then, we went to the winners circle. While we were down there taking pictures and all the Richard Petty driving experience people invited us down to take a look at the cars close and personal. That was awesome! We each climbed in the cars and took pictures and all. Of course, the men were flirting with us three good-lookin women and invited us back to watch the driving experience and they would let us help change tires. We thought about it, but really didn't have time.

After the Speedway and subsequent gift shopping by L, we headed to Concord Mills for a little shopping and lunch. From there, we hit Northlake Mall and then headed home. We got home around 6PM and proceeded to get ready for a night on the town. We headed to uptown Charlotte (notice it isn't downtown, but uptown, that's a whole other post) for dinner at Mert's. We had to walk about a block and a half to Mert's from the parking deck and B was complaining because she was on medicine for a sinus infection. During dinner, she decided she really couldn't walk the block and a half to the dance club in the cold (we had left our coats in the car) and insisted we take a cab. Anyway, $6.60 later, we arrived at The Breakfast Club. We were some of the first people there, as L had called and their message said to arrive early as they expected to sell out since it was their 4th anniversary party.

The place was really awesome! The bartender was great and the atmosphere is amazing. It is ALL 80's! We had some drinks, chatted and watched 80's videos until we finally got the urge to dance. They had Madonna, Billy Idol, Pat Benetar & Joan Jet impersonators. They really went all out. In the dance area, the movie "The Breakfast Club" played on one wall over and over. The other showed usually the video for what song was playing while the other showed old shows from the 80's (Fraggle Rock was on for a while!). We had a blast! In fact, we didn't get back to my house until 2:30 AM! Yes, you read that right, 2:30 in the fucking morning! On the way home, we swung by the Taco Bell drive through, as we were starving. When we arrived home BD was just trying to get PM back to sleep, who had woken up. So, I got to deal with that and PM ended up in our bed. I would guess he had a bad dream. Then, DQ got up after B finished in the bathroom and I had to get her back to sleep. Lucky me. I did sleep until about 7:30 on Sunday though.

Here is a lovely "drunk" self-portrait of us on the dance floor. I say "drunk" in quotes because I wasn't drunk because I had to drive home!
The girls and I headed first to the South Carolina state line and then to SouthPark Mall on Sunday. We shopped some, B bought a small silver ring at Tiffany for herself. Oh to be single again... We had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and then I dropped the girls off at the airport. When I got home, the kids and BD graciously let me take an hour long nap. That was very sweet of them! I then made them a fabulous lasagna dinner, so they should do that more often!

Here is the recipe for Carmel French Toast:

Ingredients
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 stick of margarine/butter
2 1/4 Tablespoon Light Corn Syrup (I use Karo)
10 (1 3/4 inch) slices of French Bread
4 Eggs Beaten
2 1/2 cup of milk or cream
1 Tablespoon of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3 Tablespoons of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/4 cup margarine/butter (melted)

Steps

1. In a saucepan combine the first three ingredients (brown sugar, margarine/butter, corn syrup). Stir constantly over medium heat until bubbly.
2. Pour mixture into baking dish. Arrange bread slices on top of
3. mixture in baking dish.
4. In a mixing bowl, mix eggs, milk/cream vanilla
5. and salt until well blended. Pour mixture on top of bread slices.
6. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over bread (I mixed the cinnamon and sugar together before sprinkling over bread).
   
7. Chill mixture overnight.
8. The next morning, cover with the melted butter and bake on 350 for 45-50 minutes. Enjoy!