If you could see me right now, you'd see me grinning from ear to ear. As I think about the weekend I just experienced, I can't help but smile. Yes, it was *that* good. I know that my words won't do this experience justice, but I'm going to give it a shot (if jade were taking this photo of herself, there wouldn't be all that stuff in the background - she kept her room tidy, unlike some of us).
It all started when Jade sent Cathy and I a message saying that she would be traveling through the south and wanted to swing through Louisiana...where did we live? Cathy & I actually live near each other, but then she piped up that her family had a plantation home with plenty of room that we could stay at, so we agreed to make a weekend of it. A weekend out in the country?
Sure, sounds good to me...I should probably mention that we had never met Jade in person (we are all blog friends) and none of our husbands had ever met anybody.
Are we a little crazy? Maybe. That's 6 adults and 9 kids 9 & under all staying under one roof. It would seem that would equate to chaos, but I think it was more like magic.
When Jade and Miles showed up Friday night, they seemed a little shell shocked. Can you imagine driving up to a plantation home out in the middle of nowhere after hours and hours of travel to stay with two other families that you've never met in person?
Lucky us, the kids were up at 6:30 am. Yay. It was a full day of visiting, swimming, eating, and just being.
Those kids - they all played with each other beautifully. The siblings didn't fight, there was no brattiness and much to my amazement, no tattling (how did that happen?). Because they got along so well, that gave us grown ups the chance to visit and enjoy each other's company. It's so nice when everyone clicks! The only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been some 80 degree weather with low humidity...but you can't have everything I suppose.
Sunday morning we woke up to rain, so our plans of more swimming didn't happen. The dismal sky made for some weirdly lit photos, but we did manage to get a group shot and some 'awkward family photos' pictures of us girls. Don't judge. We might look silly and have bad hair, but it was fun.
I wish I could come up with adequate words to describe the weekend, but all I can say is that it just felt right. It's that warm feeling that stays with you and makes you smile every time you think about it.
