The annual MLK weekend girls trip was in Abilene this year, so the icy cold weather added a bit of excitement to our agenda. Most girls were planning on coming in Friday night. To our surprise and delight, Natalie, our friend who lives in Michigan, decided a couple of days before the trip that she and Melaina, her adorable 3-month-old, would come as well. Natalie and Melaina had a long day on Friday as flights were delayed and unable to land as planned. Fortunately her daughter was a trooper throughout the whole trip and Natalie had the foresight to bring a chocolate bar on the plane for stressful moments such as these. (The chocolate being for Natalie, not Melaina.) The girls in Dallas picked her up and they got in to Abilene around midnight.
Jennifer is usually not able to come to these trips because she plans a girls conference in Houston that always comes a couple weeks after our trip. Fortunately for us, she was already in Abilene for a graduate class and decided to stay Friday night and drive back to Houston Saturday. With the icy weather, we even got her for an extra day! Jenna and her husband, Matt, who were driving from Houston left ahead of the storm and arrived to town around 10:30. So Leah, Tamara, and I, the three who currently live in Abilene, spent the evening catching up with Jenn and Jenna and calling the group from Dallas to give them periodic weather reports. Kayci also had a hard time flying in from Houston (and returning), but she was able to make it for Sunday night and Monday.
Once we all got to Tamara's house, we spent the majority of the weekend inside talking, eating, playing games, reading magazines, and watching movies. It was a perfect way to spend a weekend with the girls. We got a little more excitement than we had planned Saturday night when the transformer went down in the neighborhood and we lost power. We started a fire, lit candles, and we were fine except... the burglar alarm was going off and we didn't have a way to stop it other than duct taping pillows over the speakers which we did try. The police officer who came that night was surprised to find 13 girls in the entryway when he walked in, but he was able to disconnect the speaker for us.
We also had a baby shower for the two who are due next--Jenna and Kayci. And took a picture of the 5 pregnant women (one with twins and one who just found out). Overall it was a lovely weekend. We missed Jocelyn, Sara, and Madalyn....hope to see you girls next time!
How many people are in this picture? Actually 11!
These are some picture from our holiday travels. The first three are from the cruise we took with Brandon's parents and their friends, the Wombles. We left from Galveston on Christmas day and had two stops, one in Progresso where we toured the Mayan ruins, and one in Cozumel where we went to the beach and snorkeled. We had a great time and my lucky mother-in-law even won another cruise playing bingo on this one!
And this one is of Ava shaking her booty in Austin. We spent 3 days in Austin with my family after the cruise. For New Year's Eve, we walked downtown from our hotel. They had a great parade, live music, food, and fireworks. At one point a circle of people formed and they were clapping and cheering. We went to see what was going on, and there were kids in the middle of the circle dancing...I mean really getting their groove on! It was so funny! Ava was a little more shy; she didn't go out to the middle, but stood on the outside dancing.
