Fun and Friends

We returned home Sunday night after spending a wonderful long weekend with our friends. Four years ago we moved 8 hours from these friends--boy do we miss them! The specialness (is that word?) of our relationship is such that we're able to pick up right where we left off and laugh and love each other the way we always have. It's a tremendous blessing to have such wonderful friends in our life, and we pray we never take them for granted.

We arrived on Thursday to a delicious dinner made by Lauren. We had a great dinner and a fun evening catching up with the couple who set us up for our first date. In college, my childhood friend and her boyfriend set me up with one of his friends---who turned out to be the man I would marry. They also married (obviously) and so we have a lot of memories together. After staying up later than usual, the following day we hung out and then I was able to spend time with other girlfriends, some from college and some from my childhood. We took the kiddos to the park.




Caroline definately doesn't get the concept of feeding the ducks yet. (She threw the entire piece of bread in the water.) She does love watching them though, and she occasionally quacks at them--nonetheless, she stood for a few minutes by the water with the others. I kept having to chase her down though--she wanted to go her own way. (Miss Independent)

Ever since we got the yard toys, Caroline has become a slide maniac. It is definately her favorite part of the playground.





Even through the closenes and blurriness of this pic, you can see her happy and excited face. She basically landed right on top of me since I was right at the bottom of the slide trying to get this pic. She came down faster than I expected!



Just chillin'.



Driving the school bus. (We're going to frame this one for Poppy!)







This slide was her Everest and she climbed it many, many times and LOVED every minute of it. I was nervous about her climbing it and followed her the first time, but she was great at it, the little monkey. She did, however, almost fall head first off it a few times while coming down the slide, but one of us caught her each time before she could hurt herself. She loved it though and kept going back for more! She has no fear.



By this picture, Caroline was getting whiney and tired and didn't want to sit still. Neither did Mason, so Blair just held onto their heads for us! :)



Last, but not least, a pic of the girls and me. If not for these ladies, who knows how I would have turned out. Along with parents who loved me and taught me to love the Lord, these four girls helped keep me balanced through elementary, middle, and high school. From left to right you've got: Caroline and me, Lauren and Logan, Ashley, Katie and Blair (Blair is Lauren's oldest) and Becca and Abbey. I love each of these girls dearly and in a different way than any of my other friends. When you've gone through as much as we have and know each other as well as we do, well a bond forms like no other. We're more spread out now (although I'm the only one in a different state) but, we love each other. I can count on them, and they can count on me, no matter how many miles are between us. I know you'll all read this at some point, so girlsssss, know that I love you!

Hopefully Nikki will post some pics from Sunday, because I didn't have my camera out so I can't share pics of us with the Dew's and the Rubel's. So, Nikki, POST PICS! :)

We had a great weekend--one of the best we've had in a long time. I don't think we've laughed that much or that hard in a long time and it's refreshing to the spirit to laugh like we did all weekend long.

We're home now, and tired!

(Blogger isn't letting me spell check and it's late...try not to look too closely at my spelling!)