a morning with my girls

tammy, jen, heather, me, & kristie
this past saturday, we girls had a morning out... just us! no husbands, no kids, and no diaper bags! heather's birthday was earlier in may, but she was out of town for her actual special day. before she left, i presented her with a card that held the following poem:

we wanted to take you on a birthday date...
just us girls to celebrate.
but you just happen to be going away
the weekend of your special day.

so this little ditty is to reserve
the morning of saturday, may 23rd.
we will pick you up at 10 o’clock
and we’ll drive a little around the block.
where we’ll end up will remain a surprise.
we may even make you close your eyes!

until that day, you can just stay curious
about our morning that is so mysterious.
everytime you wonder what we’re gonna do,
let it be a reminder that we love YOU!
so saturday morning came, and we picked up our birthday girl. we mysteriously drove around downtown a little because we were early for our 10:30 tea room reservation. when we arrived promptly at 10:30 (when they were to open), heather was so excited that we would be having a morning of afternoon tea! well, we found the lights off and a "closed" sign on the door. after knocking on the door and calling three times to get no answer, we assumed that they'd had some kind of emergency and were not there. (especially because i had tried to reach them several times the day before with no success.) WELL. i was really really bummed. we had been planning this for over a month, and i was really looking forward to my pot of english breakfast tea and those delicious scones. oh yeah, and celebrating my sweet friend's birthday! :) my favorite restaurant was our quick back-up plan, so i couldn't stay upset for too long. they had a table ready right away, and boy oh boy, did we feast! our five omelets were made to order, complete with sides of to-die-for french toast and kick-it-up-a-notch breakfast potatoes! we were ready to be rolled right out of there when the bakery treated heather with a piece of birthday cake--her choice. she and i ran right up to the cake counter to make the big decision. i was just a little excited about the cake...


heather ultimately chose a strawberry creme cake, and it's a good thing they gave her 5 forks!! her piece of cake was ginormous!


our morning together ended all too quickly. what a blessed few hours we shared talking, talking, talking! it had been a while since we'd had this girl time thanks to a series of illnesses that plagued our households in succession... so we enjoyed every second of this brunch! these beautiful women of God are incredible, plain and simple. they continually encourage me with scripture, challenge me as a wife and mother, and bless me as a friend. God has truly been so good to give me these girls. (and we were so excited to have jen join us for our morning out! she's on the left between tammy and heather in the top picture. jen, her husband sam, and two adorable girls have recently moved here, and we are really really enjoying getting to know them. her daughter lola is one month younger than caroline, and her daughter amelia lynn is 6 months old... so we plan on having lots of fun with them in the next few years!)

anyway, we were so glad to finally get to celebrate heather's birthday! heather is such a precious and gentle friend. we are blessed to live right down the street from each other, and her kids avery & savannah are the same age as ethan & caroline. my kiddos adore avery and "fanana" as caroline calls her. :) in the two years that heather has lived here, i have either been working part-time or pregnant, so i feel like i have been a slacker of a friend in many respects. BUT i have two more years to make up for it! :) we are planning many trips to the beach together this summer, and just today, ethan had his first bike ride with his super-fast friend! avery's ability to fly down the street really motivated ethan to get goin' on his bike! :) heather and i are both preparing ourselves for the great big world of homeschooling, so it will be a blessing to walk that road together as well. all of that to say... happy birthday, heather! i am so thankful to call you my friend!


(and the rest of the story of the tea room being closed is that the girl that owns it called my house around 11:00 looking for us since "we didn't show up for our reservation". that would not have been an issue except that my phone was on silent, and my mom--who was watching amelia while brian took the kids to lowe's-- got worried when i did not answer my phone and we had not shown up at the tea room. 30 minutes later, i looked at my phone to see that i had seven missed calls and that my phone was on silent. shoot. after apologizing to my mom a hundred times for worrying her that we'd been in an accident, i called the tea room back to find out that there had been an emergency that had delayed the owner. apparently she was so delayed that she could not let us know that until 30 minutes after our reservation. and she was so delayed that she could not tell my mom that she wasn't there at 10:30 so we might have tried to in fact be there... small tiny detail, i guess. and she was so delayed that she could not sincerely apologize for totally throwing off our morning. just a tiny little bit of groveling would have been nice. she actually sounded really annoyed at the whole situation. which was supposed to be my role in this whole thing. but i was stuffed full of french toast by that point. and bitterness does not go well with syrup and powdered sugar...)