This is 40

My sister Sarah's birthday was yesterday, February 23rd. She turned 40. 

Sarah got married right out of college, almost 20 years ago, and never had a proper bachelorette. We didn't do anything crazy for her 30th birthday. Since she's the oldest, she got the shaft on some of these major milestones, since my sisters and I were too young/poor/unorganized to get anything off the ground. 

Even now, in today's ridiculous destination bachelorette/wedding/birthday/divorce party culture, she doesn't feel like she got ripped off for any of this, but my sisters and I always felt she was owed something better. For her 40th, we wanted to plan something really great. 

We booked the cheapest hotel we could find and posted up at the liquor store to avoid egregious bar mark-ups. When you party with the McCarthy sisters, you want for nothing.

Nashville was a blast and I'm hoping to get my act together, detailing posts about surprise birthday planning and tips for cheap travel and of course a photo dump to document it all. At the very least, at the absolute minimum, we have all the fun new memories we made.

And this picture of the birthday girl.