Beach Houses and Shopping

When you’re traveling with girls, you can be sure there will be plenty of good food. Most of our hubbies will not eat like this, so it’s nice to eat girlie food on a trip to the beach. Tricia brought her oh-so-yummy Southern Living Cha-Cha chicken salad, which she made for us and if you need a good chicken salad recipe, it’s listed on this post. This is about the BEST chicken salad I’ve ever had, so give it a try. I’m definitely going to make it myself. You use rotisserie chicken and it has cream cheese in it, nuff said! We brought fruit, plenty of crackers, bagels, I made my banana bread, and we ate very well. We polished off the rest of the chicken salad and fruit for breakfast the last day and headed home.

I snapped some of the colorful beach houses on the way out of town. You can see the sky was dark and cloudy, but that didn’t stop the shoppers. The array of color on the Gulf coast with these beach cottages can’t be beat.

I imagine the folks below don’t have any problem telling their visitors where to go…it’s the PINK house….

Pink seems to be a popular color down here for beach cottages.

Our first stop on the way out in Foley was Fran’s garden center.

We got countless laughs over their sign since we saw it driving in. Sandy is an avid gardener and really wanted to take some of this home with her, so we stopped to take a look. She decided it smelled a little too much for us to put it in the SUV and have to ride home with it. The lady at Fran’s said they had quite a lot of comments over the turkey poop sign. I bet they have! :)

I did enjoy the garden paths around this nursery and got some ideas for my backyard. It was a fun place to browse.

A bottle tree.

And the Wisteria was blooming over this arbor. Next stop was Trees N Trends, another fun store. Sort of a cross between Old Time Pottery and Grand Harbor Imports in Atlanta.

Lots of floral arrangements, as well as dried and silk florals galore.

A whole wall full of outdoor cushions.

Tons ‘o lamps.

Luggage that you couldn’t miss a mile away. This is what you need at the airport carousel to stand out in the crowd.

A couple of us bought this moss on a roll, thought it was pretty fun.

A couple of cute ottomans.

Lots of outdoor pots.

Trendy and inexpensive purses.

And plenty of furniture pieces too. A total fun place to browse and look around, so if you get to Foley, check out Trees N Trends.

There still more to come and the next shops are even better!

Birmingham girls, today the yardsales are plentiful, so you might want to get out there and find a few. I'm hitting at least 3 big sales this a.m. and I also met up on Friday with a reader in Indian Springs who is having a big sale today. Great stuff! She is at 788 Indian Crest Drive if anyone wants to stop by. She and I worked out a trade and I brought home some beautiful brown and white transferware Staffordshire English ironstone dishes and I'm going back next week for a decorating consultation. I love that! And I bought some other goodies from her too that I'll show you later on. I've got lots to share!