Mid-April, we spent a long weekend on our fourth annual trip to Brown County, IN, with some of our closest college friends (my Delta Gamma girls) and their families -- eight adults and eight-and-three-quarters kids. It was a blast watching Madeline, Ella, Cassidy and Kainoa play together like they live on the same street, even though everyone traveled from Chicago, Toledo, Louisville and Nashville. The younger set -- Charlie, Gavin, Makaoi and Brady -- was hilarious too, sharing especially well considering they're all between one and two years old.
The kids played duck-duck-goose, hunted for toads in the pond, played football with the dads and "swam" daily in the hot tub in between art projects and naps. We took turns making family-style dinners for the group, and when the kids would all crash at night, the adults enjoyed our grown-up time. The cabin we rent is on the market for a cool million bucks, so it's pretty nice (understatement). The guys sat around the fire pit, listening to music or playing poker (with the occasional cigar), while the girls curled up on the couches and talked like we were still in college (only instead of discussing who we were taking to Barndance or how we were going to get through finals, we laughed about potty training and caught up in detail on the day-to-day of each others' lives -- hard to do in 10-minute phone snippets from home).
We stayed up way too late and woke up way too early, but I wouldn't trade the time we spend together each year for anything. It nourishes me. And since Jaime, Tara, Erin and I all met our husbands during our college years, our group of eight has known each other and hung out for almost 15 years. The Haru pack is moving from Louisville to Charlotte soon...so our annual BroCo trip may move to a new location, but it will still be on the 2012 calendar.
Writing about these friends makes me realize that in the Christmas crunch, I never wrote about the first moms-only trip we took to Florida in November last year. We were heartbroken that Tara wasn't able to make it last minute, but Jamie, Erin and I soaked up the sun and went for long walks on the beach, taking a much needed mental break before we returned fully refreshed to no-rest-for-the-weary job as Mommy.
1 comment:
Love our hat photo! Ha. One of my favorite weekends each and every year!!!
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