Perpect Weekend

You may think that you have the best group of girlfriends in the world. But you don't. That's because I do.

This past weekend, seven of us girls met up at Kaley's farm house in Monticello for an awesomely wonderful time together. I hadn't seen Nicole since her wedding in December 2010, or Kaley since our New Year's weekend at the farm of that same month. So we were all due for some much-needed time together.

Miraculously, we were able to find a weekend that worked for so many people. Right now, the seven of us live in FIVE different cities (one of those is in New Jersey), and all have crazy busy lives. After a lot of talking about it, we finally all settled on the farm house, and I'm so glad we did.

Family portrait :)

We had some yummy food - pasta for dinner Friday night, banana pancakes and bacon for brunch Saturday at noon and random stuffing casserole whenever we wanted it that Kaley's grandmother had made. And then of course way too much junk food (which we regretted by the end of the weekend) but was still good - cheese balls, powdered donuts, chocolate donuts, 3 bags of chips, marshmallow fluff, peanut butter, goldfish, frozen pizza's, popcorn and probably more I've forgotten.

HUGE stacks of pancakes and bacon. And that's only one pancake plate - there was a second, smaller plate.

Before we got there, Kaley made us a giant, 100-foot slip-n-slide for Saturday. We had multiple hoses, three sprinklers and a two bottles of soap on it. We had soooo much fun!! But we all got bumps and bruises and scrapes from the wooden beams that were holding it down. It was worth it though. We also sat in a hot tub on the back of a trailer that we filled with a water hose - which means it was absolutely freezing, but actually still very nice. We liked to refer to it as "The Pool," and while in The Pool, we filled the top of a Styrofoam cooler with cheese balls for a snack.

100-foot slip-n-slide = Legit. And slightly dangerous.

We played lots of games. Because we absolutely love games and that's what we always do when we're together. We played Catch Phrase, Golf (card game), Phase 10, Quelf and had a dance party. Our best idea we've ever had was to play cards under the sprinkler on the folded up slip-n-slide. For real. It was amazing. I have two decks of those plastic, kind of see-through cards, and it was the jam. We set up the tarp again on Sunday, positioned a sprinkler to lightly mist us, and had the best time playing cards in the sunshine, with the water on us. We even rotated our circle every round so that we could tan evenly. We. Are. Geniuses.

One of our multiple game times!

The best game of cards we've ever played. Ever.

Other random things we did during the weekend included: painted our nails (cliche girly thing to do), called our friends who couldn't be with us (so good to talk to you Megan, but we missed you and Christina!), read our books and drank coffee together in the mornings, talked a LOT and braided each other's hair a couple of times (also a cliche girly thing to do during "sleepovers").

Not only did we do amazing fun things, but we also had very real, deep conversations. We all trust each other so much, and can share lots of things about our lives. We're so blessed to have fun and funny times together, but even more so that we can be real with each other. A number of us said (at separate times to different girls actually), that we are most ourselves, we can be the most "normal" or we can be the most real or the most at ease, when we are with this group.

There's just something about our group of girls that is so comforting and fun and wonderful that makes it all so amazing. Seriously - the girls (and guys) that I was blessed with through college rock my world. These girls are my very best friends, my favorites, my soul mates. I am so thankful that God placed each one of them in my life!

We have already begun to plan the next time we can do something awesome like this again. Because it absolutely will  happen again. And soon hopefully. Some of our friends who have lived away in other states for a few years are thankfully moving back to Florida quite soon. And we are ecstatic. Can't wait for more of our friends to be closer again!

Doesn't this just look like the most wonderful-est weekend ever? Because it really was. And this isn't even all of my bestest friends. I have at least five or six more wonderful girls from college who are all just as special and amazing as these. I'm sure you know who you are out there! :) I hope you have at least one or two friends who you love as much as I love these girls. I know I am extremely blessed to have been given so many! I love you girls. So very much :)

P.S. - "Perpect" is not a typo. It's from a precious little girl that Dani taught, and something we all say quite frequently now. So it's fitting for the title of this post. :)

P.P.S. - I kicked off my no-carb diet this morning (had boiled eggs for breakfast). Say a quick prayer for me about this next two weeks. It's gonna be difficult I'm sure!