Wednesday, November 7, 2007

NO BOYS ALLOWED

(k is doing MUCH better, thanks for all the good wishes. I am cloroxing the heck out of my house, lets keep our fingers crossed!)

So I am a big believer in girl-time. Sometime you need to get away from the DH and kids and get with your girls. I have an amazing circle of close girlfriends that live in town (and a few out of town) and I am so lucky to have them around me. The core group started from college and has grown a bit from there. Most of us have known each other for over 20 years and we are still close. I am so blessed. Now we have kids that are growing up together. We all had kids around the same time - at one point 4 of us were pregnant with our second child at the same time - gave birth in June, July and August of the same year! There are now 11 kids ages 6 and under. It is really great.

And while we do lots of family events together, I love when we get together - just the girls. The husbands think we spend the time together bitching about them. I'm not going to say that has never happened, but really it is just that women can talk to women about more things than husbands or others care to hear about. I think that time is so precious, and love when we get the opportunity to do it.

Every few weeks we have a girls dinner (although we have been slacking lately - need to get back on that), a few times a year we go on a "girls weekend" away, and when several of us turned 30 we decided to do a week-long girls trip every 5 years.

At 30 we flew to Nashville, TN; rented an RV, and drove across the South. It was awesome. None of us were particularly into camping, nor had any of us lived in or driven an RV. But we had a great time (nevermind the smashing the a/c unit off the top of the thing, or Duffy nearly having a heart attack at my driving down rainy, wet mountain roads).

At 35 we stayed in a b&b in Santa Fe and did day trips around the area. So relaxing, and so BEAUTIFUL! We took a cooking class, did lots of shopping, ate GREAT food, saw opera, hiked, and even had mud baths.

Next year, several of us will be 40. We are renting an apartment in Paris for a week. I am so excited. I already have my plane ticket, and we aren't going until August. All of us have been to Paris before, so we are really just going to try and hang out - eat great french food, drink french wine, and enjoy the culture.

How do you all spend time with your girlfriends?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my GOD!! PARIS?! That's awesome!! I love the idea of a big trip every 5 years. Now I just need friends to do it :)

Paris. :)

Unknown said...

"nevermind the smashing the a/c unit off the top of the thing"

Have I mentioned how much I truly love my wife and how this was the funniest phone call I ever received from her. I love ya, Steph :)

Jill said...

right now i dont get to hang with my girls. we exchange emails and pictures and that's great. the last time we were all together was for one of them's wedding. sigh. i miss it. but if we do start going round and round on a topic on email, then it is pretty awesome. it's so real, like i can hear their voices in the same room with me when i read their emails (and no i'm not crazy)...

Unknown said...

Josh, I completely agree with you. That was one of the funniest moments. :-)

Pam said...

OMG! PARIS!! AHH! I am SOOOOOOOOO jealous! Wow!

I agree- girl time is the best. We all need it and we all deserve it. I haven't had much girl time lately because Riley is still small. But I'm hoping after her turns one and we are done nursing to have some more girls nights out. Usually we just go out to dinner or shopping...but your plans sound so awesome.

Good for you - a happy mommy is a good mommy!

Anonymous said...

OK, no fair. I'm reading your blog to Josh about the RV and he already commented! ...and only in retrospect is it funny...

Happy Working Mom said...

I'm so extremely jealous of you! Unfortunately I was the first of my college friends to do everything (get married, have kids, etc.) - most of them don't have kids and no plans for them any time soon. So it's hard to relate on a lot of things.

And then I have a lot of friends that are stay at home moms...so definitely no money for Paris!

You are very, very lucky!

Courtney said...

Wow, what an awesome and fun group of friends! I completely agree that every woman needs time away from hubby and kids once in awhile. My long-time friends live about 2 hours away from me so I don't see them very often. But I do have a local moms group and we go on Mom's Nights Out and to scrapbooking crops once a month. It's fun :)

Courtney said...

By the way, thanks for your compliment on my dragon cake :) And thanks for adding me to your links, I'm adding you to my blogroll too!

Anonymous said...

I miss girl time with my girl-friends..sigh..was not well during my pregnancy..now tat I've given birth all my time seems to be taken up by my bb..guess I've to make some time for my girl-friends soon..