Modern Friends, I am proud to announce that once I wrap up work today, I will officially be on vacation for NINE WHOLE DAYS. It’s the first time I will have taken off work since Christmas and the first fun trip I will have taken since my last run to Asheville EIGHT MONTHS AGO. That, my friends, is a travesty but I can thank my crazy work life.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading south to Athens, Ga., just outside of Atlanta to see Modern Angie H. get herself hitched and be reunited with my friends from my time spent living in Chattanooga, probably my favorite bunch of folks in the whole wide world. (Aside from all of you, of course).

On Sunday morning, I’ll head sort of southwestish to Destin, Fla., a once-upon-a-time little beach resort town pinned in between Pensacola and Panama City that’s now a pretty big beach resort town. My family and I have been traveling there most every year since I was in grade school. I missed the trip last year and I mean I really missed it. No one should be without a beach trip each year. I have a full agenda planned for the week that includes sitting on the beach in 80-degree sunny weather, reading lots of mindless beach reads (perhaps even Twilight? what’s getting into me?), eating lots of seafood and spending lots of money at the factory outlet stores there. In short, it will be heaven. I’ll be sure to rub it in here at The Modern Gal next week.

On the following Saturday I’ll be headed north for Birmingham, Ala., where I’ll get to see my cousin get hitched to his lovely lady and get to spend some time with my dad’s side of the family, whom I don’t get to see nearly enough.

(Editor’s note: How convenient that my friends planned their weddings around my beach vacation, right?)

I’ll be a bit scarce during the weekends around these parts, but I don’t plan to be during the week. I’m looking forward to having a little extra time to spend with the blog each day AND I’m super excited about it being Interview Week. I’m in love with the questions y’all have left me (feel free to leave some more if you have ’em).

And of course, I’ll be tweeting the road trip portion of the vacation, as I always do. I don’t know how exciting it will be, but it is usually a bit of a Where’s the Modern Gal? adventure. I can tell you now, there will be a tweet about a giant peach sometime midday Sunday. I’ll see if I can figure out TwitPic before then.

Have a lovely weekend!