On girls nights and friendships

I mentioned that last week I had a night out with the girls. This was kind of bittersweet because it was the last time Ashley, Sarah Denley, and I would be able to get together for a while. Ashley has since moved out of state, so the three musketeers are now separated. As sad as we are about this, we are so excited for Ashley, because we know she is right where she needs to be. We are also confident that a friendship like ours will survive even the greatest distances! :)

To celebrate our beautiful, fun, wonderful friendship, we thought one more girl's night was in order. We went to dinner at Bonefish, which was delicious! We wanted pictures to document our night, so we asked someone at the restaurant to take our picture. The hostesses were staring at us out the window like they had never seen a camera before. How rude! ;) The poor guy taking our picture couldn't quite get the hang of my camera, and after several attempts, this is the best picture we got (with SD's camera). Not bad, except I look F-A-T!! Ha!We then moved the party to Barnes and Noble for dessert and lots of girl talk. We had SUCH a fun time and didn't want to the night to end.Thankfully, the night didn't have to end quite yet because we continued our important discussion at Ashley's house for a good long while. We did eventually have to say goodbye though. We kept it light, and there were thankfully no tears shed. (Sarah Denley -- haha!)

I think all of us would agree that our friendship is one of our greatest gifts. When Aubrey was born, I often felt so alone because I didn't really have any close friends who were in my stage of life and learning about this whole motherhood thing with me. I didn't feel like I had anyone I could call and say, "Do you ever have days where you feel like you could just scream?" Or "Did you ever imagine you could love your child so much you just feel like crying tears of joy?" Now I can say that God has blessed me with several precious friends who are walking this same road as me. Ashley, Sarah Denley, and I empathize with each other's frustrations, we laugh at our mistakes, we rejoice at our successes... we get each other. And that's a really good feeling. It truly is proof that God provides for all our needs and so many of our wants. I would definitely say that I wanted friends who understood what I do on a daily basis. I can now say that I think I really needed these friendships too.

So, thank you girls, for being such wonderfully supportive friends. I can't wait until our first girls trip!!