Awesome Weekend

This weekend was one of the best weekends I've had since we returned to the States. One of my best friends in Germany, M., moved to Texas back in the summer of 2004, and I missed her terribly. Her sister lives about an hour from where I live and she came to NC for Labor Day weekend. She called me Thursday evening and we made plans to get together for dinner Friday night with Christy. It had been just over two years since we had seen each other. My kids and her kids were always really good friends too, so they were really excited to see each other. We had a really good time at dinner Friday night, but didn't have as much time as we'd liked, so we made plans for later in the weekend. M.'s husband is in Iraq right now, and watching her girls with my husband reminded me so much of how my kids bonded with her husband while mine was in Iraq. They obviously miss their daddy, and I know they will all be so happy when he returns home in a few weeks.

Saturday my kids went to spend some time with their grandparents. M. called me Saturday evening and we made plans for her and the girls to come down Sunday afternoon. The kids were wanting more time to play together. So we decided that she would call me Sunday when they were ready to come down. This would also give my kids a chance to spend the night with their grandparents, as well as part of Sunday afternoon. They were excited about that. Sunday afternoon P. and I went to his parents' to have lunch with his parents and pick up the kids. M. called me as we were on the way home to let me know they were on their way. They got to my house and we just spent the rest of the afternoon and evening visiting. The kids had a great time playing together and watching movies. We ordered pizza and the kids had a pizza party and watched movies in their TV room. The grownups reminisced about the fun we had in Germany. I pulled out the scrapbooks toward the end of the visit and we looked at photos from trips we had taken together. M. and I traveled together quite a bit, and would have probably done more if they hadn't had to leave Europe when they did. Christy wasn't able to join us Sunday night because she and her hubby returned fairly late from a trip, so we made plans to get together for breakfast. When it came time for them to leave for the night, her girls really didn't want to go, nor did my kids want them to. When the four of them saw each other again, it was almost as if they had just seen each other yesterday.

This morning we decided to meet at IHOP for breakfast. The kids really liked that...well, all of us did. After breakfast we decided to go do some shopping and hit the mall. We spent a good part of the day shopping together. The kids got to go to the toy store and get a little something, and got to ride the carousel three times. We all had a great time and hated to have to say goodbye again. Hopefully we'll get together again before another two years go by.