On “Meeting” My Friends

For those of you who actually read and pay attention to all or most of my posts, I imagine a few of you may be thinking, “Well, it’s the end of June. Whatever happened to that April meetup with the other Mommy Bloggers? Ooh.. I bet it got cancelled or didn’t go well.” If there’s anyone who thinks this way, I really couldn’t blame you. In fact, I went to a party last week, and someone point blank asked me if this meetup had ever even happened. I didn’t blame him either. After all, it’s sort of weird if something goes well that it wouldn’t be discussed, right? Well, it went well, fabulous in fact. I’ve just been lazy in getting around to actually writing about it [compare this to Brittney’s three posts about it…]. And, honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how to word how I feel.

In a sense, I feel like I should have so much to say, because the weekend was so awesome that I should actually have to edit myself to keep the gushing and word count down. On the other hand, meeting up with two of my closest friends who I had never, prior to April 8th, seen in person, felt so natural and so normal, that it felt like any other day out of my life – only in a vacation setting. Honestly, once we got past the initial “crap, are we going to get along in person?” it was like I was just going on vacation with two of my best friends and their families, nothing more.

Without going into too much detail, we were all nervous about finally meeting even after we had all arrived in Phoenix. Turns out, we had nothing to worry about. Everyone got along pretty well. Of course, every now and then we had to resolve the occasional toddler dispute over toys or had trouble figuring out dinner plans for a group of 11 (well, 10.5), but other than that we had a fantastic time. The first night, we hung out around the hotel and ate pizza. On Saturday, since it was raining, we took the kids to Amazing Jakes, an indoor play place and let them run themselves ragged. Sunday, we went to the zoo and then the pool, before our farewell dinner at Bennihana.

The whole weekend was perfect, and Sunday night, we were all sad to go. Of course, this lead to the discussion of “What were we thinking??” making the trip so short. With two days basically reserved for travel, we only had two full days to spend time together. We decided to rectify the situation as soon as possible. Next summer, we’re planning on taking a trip to the Northeast, going to Kat’s neck of the woods. In November, everyone will come down to Texas, and we’ll all take a trip up to San Antonio to walk the River Walk and take the kids to Sea World [tickets have already been booked!!]. And in a wonderful showing of generosity and friendship (a gesture that makes me tear up every time I think about it), Brittney – who is just as pregnant as I – is throwing me a baby shower in August, and she and Kat will be staying with me for the weekend.

Of course, no matter how many vacations we plan, it seems like it’s never enough. Whenever one of us is having a hard day, the general feeling is usually, “I wish you guys were here.” However, even though we’re not physically near each other, we are always there for each other.