I get together my besties, who all live in different places (Diane in Charlotte, Jacqui in Charleston, Nator in ATL, Colby in Auburn and me in Greenville), usually at least once a year. This summer, we picked Charlotte, where Diane lives, and all made it up there during the weekend of June 9-11. This time, though, it wasn't just Mamas. We brought babies with us. Toddlers and big kids weren't really invited, but since we have 3 babies in our group under the age of 1, it just made more sense to bring them all. Since I don't have any babies, I decided to bring Ryan, because I didn't want to come empty-handed when everyone else (except Jacqui) was bringing a baby, and to make it a little easier on Thomas not have all 3 kids together on his own for the weekend.
We like to title our girls weekends with some sort of clever hashtag. When we went to Charleston a few years ago, it was #CharlesTONSofFun, then when we were in Greenville, we did #GingersMeltInTheSun (not sure why on that one...) and this time we came up with two and I like them both! #CharLOTteSofFun and #DilWORTHtheDrive, since Dilworth is the name of Diane's neighborhood/area.
Links to previous get togethers:
Charleston girls trip
Greenville Girls Weekend
Weekend in Atlanta
Blue Ridge getaway
There are probably more that I can't remember....!
We had so much fun over the weekend, with the exception on Nator (aka Steph) who was feeling a little under the weather, thanks to breastfeeding maladies...that's all I'll say about that. It was a shame, but she was a trooper and luckily called in meds at the first onset to help catch the illness before the symptoms got any worse.
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| Steph and Sloane |
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| Sloane Shafer H :) |
Friday afternoon/evening, we all made it to Diane's. We spent the first little bit meeting babies for the first time and just catching up. I brought chips, salsa and guacamole and Diane made us beef enchiladas for dinner. Ole!
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| Colby and Hadley |
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| Meeting Sloane for the first time! |
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| Chowing down, catching up and hanging out in pj's |
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| Girl time!!! |
On Saturday, we hung out around Diane's for a little while, ate breakfast, fed and rocked babies, etc. Unfortunately, Ryan had a little bit of a fever, which made me very nervous for him to be around all the little babies, but I gave him some Tylenol and we kept him away from the newborns and all the mamas were OK with it (I was fully prepared to go home if anyone was feeling nervous about it, but luckily, all was good b/c I didn't want to miss out!).
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| Baby Hadley Ruth L :) |
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| Jacqui and Hadley |
Dylan
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| Sweet angel Ryan was a trooper |
It was honestly pretty comical to have all the babies around because it was a constant stream of breastfeeding, tummy time, rocking, napping, feeding, etc. and it was all hands on deck. If someone was crying, one of us would soothe the baby - it didn't matter whose it was or what was going on - we were all trying to help take care of all of the babies. Someone said at one point that it was like a commune....so true...and funny.
Once we got to a point on Saturday morning when we could make a move and finally had everyone dressed, we went on a long walk with strollers.
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| Dylan and Hadley in the double |
Dylan and Hadley went in Diane's double stroller, I had Ryan in a single stroller and Jacqui wore Sloane in a Bjorn. We couldn't help but laugh at our progression down the street. Mom Life.
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| #SquadGoals |
We walked to a place called
Mayobird, which is pretty near Diane's house, to get lunch. Nator's and my college roommate, Andi, leaves in a suburb of Charlotte (and also has a baby!!) and she and her Hadley (yes, there were two!) met us at Mayobird. We hadn't seen her in a long time and hadn't met Baby Hadley yet, so we were so excited to see her and catch up.
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| Andi and Hadley K. |
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| Hadley L and me |
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Our lunch table, minus Diane, who was taking the pic
(Ryan asleep in his stroller...not feeling 100% :( ) |
After lunch, Nator and Andi went by the pharmacy to get Nator an Rx and the rest of us stopped by a few stores to try to find stuff that might help Nator to feel better. We took the long way home and walked through a little park area and met up with them back at Diane's house.
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| Jacqui and Sloane |
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| Get it, Jacq! |
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| #MomsInTheCity |
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| Our stroll |
It was really hot out and the walk was a little longer than we anticipated, so we were glad to get back to Diane's house to meet back up with Andi and Nator.
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| Jacqui, Hadley and Colbs |
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Dylan: this guy is TOO cute! He has the
funniest expressions. He needs to be in an ad! |
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| Candid |
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My beautiful friends and their babies
Hadley L, Colby, Hadley K. Andi |
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| Roomies 4 Life!!!! |
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| Winston and Dylan |
We spent the afternoon just hanging out with all the babies and counting down the hours until the babysitter was going to arrive (which was a bit in the air, as she was feeling a little nervous to keep all the babies and didn't confirm until around 5:30 pm!).
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| No words....but I love it. |
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| Dylan, Diane, Colby and Hadley |
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Ryan asleep
#ruglife |
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| Me feeding Hadley a bottle |
When we finally heard from the babysitter that she was coming, we had a mad dash to get ready to go out! Unfortunately, Nator was not feeling up to it, and we wanted her to get some rest. We didn't want her to try to push herself to make it out to dinner with us, only to get there and feel miserable.
I know you must be thinking that we are mean to leave one babysitter with all the babies, but we did get them all fed and to sleep before she got there! And since Nator stayed home, that was one less baby for the sitter to manage. We all had our phones on and with us, and were fully prepared to send someone home to help with any crisis that arose. We were able to walk to this place -
Foxcroft Wine Co. - near Diane's house and it was perfect! Spoiler alert: all the babies slept just fine and the babysitter got paid to hang out and watch tv. Good stuff.
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Jacqui looking hot and holding Sloane
(they totally bonded) |
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| Just before we left for dinner |
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| Pretty church on our gorgeous walk to dinner! |
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| Jacqui and Colby |
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| Diane and me |
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| Selfie time! |
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| The food was all SO GOOD! |
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| We loved our night out! |
After dinner, we thought about possibly going out for one more cocktail, but in the end, decided that we were a little tired and wanted to go ahead and get back. We wanted to relieve the babysitter and check in on Nator as well...and get comfy in our pajamas for more girl talk!
Sunday morning Baby Time!
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| Future besties |
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| How cute is this?!?! |
Everyone hit the road at different times, and it was so sad leaving my best friends. I did miss Thomas, Stokes and William, so I was looking forward to coming home to see them. Charlotte is such a quick and easy drive that Ryan and I got home in no time.
As always, I'm already excited for our next girls weekend. Thomas has a guys weekend coming up in a few weeks...potentially...which will be so fun for them. I just hope we don't have to wait until next summer to get together with my besties again!
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