Derby Day with my Girls!

On Saturday, a few of my new and wonderful friends went to Colonial Downs!  Thanks to Julia, this entire event was planned!  Hats were crafted with care, dresses blew in the wind, heels clicked and $2 bets were placed!  Is it best to go by odds or the best named horse?!?  Odds generally wins even though I rarely stuck to a strict rule of straight odds.  I am a follow your gut kinda girl and  it totally backfired on me.  I bet $20 and only won $4.80.  Shucks.  I will totally go again though and I think I will follow the odds route this time.  I hate writing that because I like to take a chance on the underdogs and I just love names like Lilly Leggs, Lipstick Traces, Sassy's Dream, Unbridled Music Fly by Phil,  and Putthebabiesdown!!!  That last one was the most loudly screamed name of the day!   

Heather, Meg and Julia (the planner) viewing the winner's circle where we all modeled our hats with high hopes of winning Best Homemade, Southern Belle, or Catour. The races began, but only after we made our bets!    

Who's going to win?!?! I know!  Not the horse I bet on!  Heather and Julie did the best! I should have copied their bets.  I will say, the two races I didn't bet on, but I chose who I wanted to win based on name, should have been the only two races I actually decided to bet on because my horse won!  Such my luck... It's A-OK, I had a blast anyways!

 

 The derby (I like that word) was hopping with hats!  You name it, we saw it! 

Here is our very Homemade group!  Melissa is in the black and purple hat!  Jillian is in the white and blue peacock hate; She was most popular for sure!!  People LOVED her hat and rightly so because she looked dynamite!  Meg is in the black, red and white butterfly themed hat!  They all looked lovely and made it to the top 10!  Way to go girlies!

Julia and Heather looking like true Southern Belles and betting fools!  I had a blast running around with them even though they were winning big time and I was on the losing end. 

 Miss Julia and myself!  All the old men loved me.  That's a total shocker to anyone who knows me...NOT! Side note: generally old men just adore me.  I'm not sure what it is, but they do.  My husband will vouch for me on this fact.  Well the derby wasn't any different.  A little old man came up to me and told me "You are the prettiest girl here!  Don't ever change!"  I told him I'd do my best.  One thing I know for sure, my mama would be proud of my red lips!  She the the retro red lipstick queen!! 

The Homemade hat girls in the grandstands looking good!! 

It was inevitable that the day would come to an end, but what a beautiful sky!  When the sky turns hues of pink and purple, my heart skips a beat! 

The night has officially ended and while some lost $20+, other broke even and others walked out with more than they had in their purse 5 hours earlier, we all had huge smiles on our faces.  I am very lucky to have such wonderful new friends!  A year ago Ryan was deployed and I was living at my parents' house dreading the move to Virginia, starting grad school and not knowing anyone.  I never imagined that I would be this happy and this settled in a place so far from my childhood home. 

 One last picture!  I like it because Julia has the Official Program of the Colonial Downs under her arm! 

Much love.