Girlfriends.

We had kind of a crazy past eight days around our house.  Last Sunday morning the boys and I dropped Gregg off at the airport; he had a business trip in St. Louis all week.

After dropping him off we went to Herriman to my sisters to stay and play for a couple of days

{I blogged about that HERE}.

Friday morning I dropped Truman and Bodie off at my parents house so I could fly to Portland to play with some college girlfriends for the weekend.  Gregg was scheduled to fly in later that day, but after plane problems in St. Louis he missed a connection in Denver and didn't end up getting home until 24 hours after his scheduled return.  Bummer.  The kids ended up spending the entire day, the night and most of the next day at my parents {thanks everyone who pitched in and helped - it was suppose to be a few hours at grandma's and ended up being two days}.

Me, Kaite, Liz and Mary.

Rick's College friends.

 I flew into Portland where Katie and her family picked me up.  Then we drove to Washington to the tri-cities area {I love that drive, it reminds me of summer vacations with my cousins at the Oregon coast} to meet up with Liz and Mary.

Liz lives in Maryland with her family but was going to be "home" in Washington for a week.  Mary is living in Spokane right now {with the military}, Katie is in Portland, and I am in Utah.  So, considering that usually we are all living in different states {across the states} we figured that we would try and get together while we were only a few hours from each other {I was the furthest away but when we started to talk about getting together I was happy to purchase a ticket and fly up for the festivities}.

We met at Liz's parents house for a BBQ with the kids and some fun in the back yard.  Between the four of us we have fourteen ... that's 14 kids!  I need to get busy ... I have the least with only two.  I tried to get a picture of each of the kids - they were so cute - I wished I could have had my kids and Gregg with me.

The girls in the play-fort.

Dessert time.

I love these girls.  We were such good friends in college - and still are.  They are the type of people who make you want to live a better life and be a better person.

Liz {in the black shirt} and I lived together one summer before our missions.  We served missions at the same time {her mission president was from my home ward in Park City}.  Katie {in the pink} and Mary {in the white shirt} both got married right after we left on our missions and they both had their first children while we were gone.  I still remember getting a letter and picture on my mission with Katie, her husband and their baby Taylor and thinking "we are getting so old"

Here is a little flashback for you!  In the fall of 2002 before our last semester at Rick's ended we all flew to Disneyland for a girls trip.

After we planned the trip I got my mission call to Los Angeles so we all stopped and took our picture at the "I love LA" store in the LAX airport {I had my picture taken here a few months later as a missionary}.  Liz was waiting for her mission call, Katie was about to get engaged and Mary was dating someone.

 Liz, Katie, Me, Mary

I would have never believed that 10 years later we would still be getting together and that we would have 14 kids between us!  I still can't get over that!