5 women

5 women traveled from 5 different cities and met this past weekend to hang out and get reconnected.

It had been 5 years since we first met.

There are at least 5 blog posts that I should be doing before this one:

1. The Princess's 5th Birthday Letter

2. The Baby's 3rd Birthday Letter

3. My half marathon accomplishment

4. Our anniversary trip

5. Cool birthday party photos

But this one is at the forefront of my mind so out it comes...

5 years ago I moved from the area I had ALWAYS lived to a small town in southwest Missouri.

I knew no one.

I had a 2-year-old little boy and a 6-week-old little girl and my hubby took a job managing a handful of restaurants in the area.

There is so much I can say about that move. The move, our life there, how we left, it was all life-changing.

It changed our marriage, changed my spiritual life, changed our family view on things.

But that's not what this is about.

We started attending a church thanks to the outgoing-outreach of Anna and her husband. More about that is HERE.

So first I met Anna. She was loud, blunt, emotional and more than willing to put herself out there to be my friend and make her friends my friends. That isn't something that every woman would do.

She worked full time but had two little kids, about the same ages as my own little kids.

I met the other three gals soon after when Anna started inviting me to Sunday school class, church events and even her own, personal girl get-togethers.

Lori was quieter than Anna, a go-with-the-flow type, always kind and always caring. Her strength over the past few years during an unbelievable health situation with her hubby that involved a series of tumors, brain surgery, doctors, hospital stays and not knowing what the next day would bring was beyond what I ever could have imagined.

Melissa had a little girl who practically shared a birthday with The Princess. Melissa had a loud, contagious laugh, was always the life of the party and I envied (and still do, in a good way) how she always talked about her husband like he was her best friend and her favorite person to be with.

Molly, well, what can you say about Molly. It's weird, actually, we hung out, did church events and we were friends, but we've become better friends since I moved away. She is just like me in so many ways. I think she was the one who I thought would be the hardest to get to know, but ironically, she was the easiest...because it was like having a conversation with myself.

It was almost 5 years ago this weekend that I moved to that small town and was introduced to these women.

I wasn't looking for anything from anyone and I found so much.

A year and a half after we moved there, Steve's job was eliminated and he took a job back in the place where we had always lived. Back to Kansas.

5 years later we all met in Kansas City for a weekend together. We've done this annually over the past 3 (almost 4) years since I've been gone from Missouri, but this was the first time that ALL 5 of us were actually able to be there together!

Melissa comes from Texas now, Molly and Lori are still near the town where we met and Anna now lives up near KC.

Time has changed things. So much has happened since we all lived in the same city. Huge life events have changed each of us and little, daily happenings have changed us in ways that aren't so obvious.

But to be able and pick up and laugh and hug like we do this every night shows just how strong our friendships are.

Pictures from this weekend don't quite do it justice (but here are a few that show our massive amounts of food and shopping!!!). It was such a perfect escape for me.

Love you girls, more than you know.

About 4 years ago at a scrapbook party at Anna's house, I found a little design on a piece of scrapbook paper and have been carrying it around ever since. I thought it would be perfect for my foot tattoo...but somehow I never made it happen. Until this weekend! I took my design and made some adjustments and gave my awesome artist guy creative freedom with the colors (only telling him that I wanted a LOT of color).

Molly got a shamrock, a tribute to her Irish roots. :)

This is the outcome....