Friends are relatives you make for yourself

I love love love it when I get to hang out with my friends. I especially love when my friends who live out of state come in town. Every once in a blue moon the stars align and they're in town at the same time and we're able to get together and hang out.

Aleese lives in Maryland but was visiting in July so we got to plan a couple of hang outs. We first went to the park with all our kids and Chelsey and her little guy (who live in Centerville, thankfully). Aleese had twins in the end of December and this was my first time seeing them. In fact, this was my first time seeing Chelsey's baby too. And the last time I saw Barrick (Aleese's 2 year old) he was just a baby. We did get together last year when Aleese came in town, but it was without the kids, so this little outing was long overdue.

Liam and Lilly (the twins)
Chelsey's little Kade
I could not get over how stinkin cute all the kids were. I took a lot of pictures of them. Here is a video I took while my kids were off with my friends and I had "baby duty"

Anisten and Chelsey. Ani just loved her (especially when she pushed her on the swing!)
After playing on the toys and eating lunch we headed over to feed the ducks. Look at all the strollers!

Aivree throwing bread
Barrick getting ready to throw bread
Ani throwing bread

Here are the babes hangin out in the strollers. Aren't they all so cute?

My sweet friends were nice enough to go with me to see the movie Eclipse. I hadn't seen it yet and was on the lookout for some girls to go with. They had already seen it, but they went with me anyway and I am so glad they did. It was such a blast. We went to eat at Jason's Deli before and then loitered around the movie theater after the movie until about 11:30 pm just talking. I mean, after more than a year of not seeing each other we had a lot of catching up to do!
This is not a great picture, but it was all I could get on my phone

Seriously just what I needed. It'd been a long time since I had a girls night.

Melissa drove up from Vegas the first of August and Aleese was still here, so we were able to get together for a homemade breakfast one morning with the kids. We didn't have much time because they always have so much planned when they come in town with their families. Which makes me feel so lucky when they can squeeze some time in for me. It was soo good to see them and the kids loved playing together (for some reason I only got pics of the kids and kind of left out my friends and I. I guess it's because I couldn't get over seeing my friends in these cute little kids' faces).

Happy boy Barrick

Ani in the sand

Bed head Aspen (she woke up shortly after we got there, I LOVE the bedhead! So cute)

Blaise, so cool :) He posed for this pic

The kids playing on the toys at Bridenstines

It's so amazing how after not seeing each other for so long and even not talking that often, we can still get together and it's like no time has gone by at all (besides all the kids running around, of course). There is just something about childhood friends that is special. It's about as close as you can get to being family.

"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart." -Elisabeth Foley

How grateful I am to have true friends in my life.