It's amazing

That she and I have reconnected after all the years that we were disconnected. This is Jennifer...I've talked about her before on my blog, but I'm still amazed that the Lord has proved faithful by rekindling this sweet friendship at this time in my life. 

Last week after me being gone on vacation and her about to go on another we ran into each other when I was heading out of the grocery and she was headed in. When I got in my car I just thought God, you are so good. It took me YEARS to develop strong and lasting relationships in KY and I'm a relationship girl...I need to feel connected...really connected to people. Moving here was challenging because though I knew my family would be here, I knew I was still going to need Mommy friends - girls in the parenting trenches with me and though I wish my sister and I could hang out every day, we can't because she's a working woman. Such is life! Jennifer has her own family here and her own set of friends but the friendship we've re-developed (since we ran with the same crowd in middle/high school) has been such a blessing to me. She and I parent very similarly and we have a lot of the same interests (insert meeting up at the gym and or for runs multiple times a week). Exercise therapy: it's amazing! :) I should add to this that in Charlotte everything is like 30 minutes away...everything. I don't know if it's proximity per say or traffic, but either way it's going to take you a sweet forever to get anywhere. How cool is it that she and I are only about 15 minutes apart. I know I can call on her for anything and the same goes for her - it's a good thing and I'm so very thankful. These first couple of pictures are of our sweet girls together - they've developed their own special little friendship and we took them out in May to see a special performance of Aladdin at Kennedy's school. We did dinner beforehand and then the play and ice cream after - a date with our girls if you will. They had so much fun and we had fun watching them have fun. 

I'm pretty sure Jen and I aren't going anywhere so I love knowing that these girls will be friends for years to come. 

Hopefully all our kids will be friends for years to come because Avery and Jennifer's youngest daughter are peas in a pod too. In May we took a family camping trip with their family and the kids thoroughly enjoyed hanging out and camping together.

When camping with kids one must take a great deal of things into consideration (proximity of bathrooms, proximity of parking (lots of gear to pack with kiddos), kid friendly things to do, safety of surroundings, etc, etc.). We chose to go to Morrow Mountain State Park and it was perfect for our first of hopefully many camping trips to come. 

The whole crew: note to self...use flash next time...aka...don't let hubby set up for picture ;).

We set off on a Saturday afternoon and once we scoped out our campsite, we went exploring/hiking. 

After our hike we decided to try row-boating. I suppose I should say Matt and Tim tried row-boating because technically Jennifer and I just sat and looked pretty and tried to keep our kids from going overboard. The boys worked super hard and I'm here to inform you that row-boating...it's not easy but we did enjoy the experience. 

~Seesters~

So pretty! 

Playing a little hang man while we got the dinner prep ready. 

It wouldn't be camping without roasting a wiener. 

Our sweet campsite.

After dinner we hiked some more of the trails that were within walking distance of our campsite. Lots of hiking = tired kids. 

You gotta have s'mores when you camp and we had LOTS of them. 

Tim may have had too many by the look on his face. Ha! 

The children were all snuggled in their respective tents for the night! 

Time for grown up time around the fire. Jennifer had not been camping before this trip and I think we may have converted her as she's started accumulating her own "gear".

One of my favorite things about camping: you get kids down and then there's no laptop, no cell phones and no TV. Talking, laughing, joking and relaxing = perfection!

The kids did REALLY well. I mean, sleeping with multiple children in close proximity can be interesting but it was only one night and we all survived and got some sleep. Clearly they woke up happy and hungry! 

One last pic of the crew in front of the campsite before we tore it down. 

It wouldn't have been as interesting without one curve ball - Jen's battery on her van died and we (read: Tim) had to jump it. Ha! At least we had our cables. 

The entire brood minus Grey who was had a sleep over with Aunt Melissa. He'll come along next time. 

Before we headed home we decided to hike one last trail that was supposed to lead to a scenic overlook. It was a long hike and the kids were worn out by the end but they all did it and we got some good pics. 

I really wanted to try to take one more trip before I had the baby, but It's not looking good. October  will be here before I know it. Let's do it again soon Jen!