A Weekend Away

Monique and I met at church when we were eleven.  We quickly became best friends and have been friends ever since.  We talk almost daily.  And last week I got to fly out to where she lives now in North Carolina (by myself!) for a long weekend trip.  We drove to Asheville to see one of our favorite writers speak at a church. Her totally fun and sweet younger sister, Brittany, came with us.  We had a BLAST.  It was peppered with the occasional, "Why do we live so far apart???!!!" sentiments, but we had such a great time.

I was supposed to fly out on Wednesday but just as I was walking out the door I got an email from United telling me my flight into Raleigh was cancelled because they were having a storm.  I spent the entire day figuring out another way to get there, only to have my new flights already getting cancelled.  I ended up on one of the first flights to land in Raleigh after the storm at 11:00 am on Thursday.  (I left at 10:30pm the night before!).  But I made it!  And I was so happy.

Asheville is a fun little town with lots of yummy little restaurants and plenty of local cheese plates.  We had great conversations and a ton of laughs.  I can't remember the last time I laughed harder than when this dress was our topic of discussion on the drive up.  Monique and Brittany were ADAMANT that the dress was white and gold.  When I found a news article showing the owner of the dress wearing it and proving the dress was actually blue and black, they glanced back at the original picture I was holding with another phone and FREAKED OUT when the dress changed colors right before their very eyes.  They said it was like they were in a horror movie and I could not stop laughing.

We were so excited to see Glennon speak, but we couldn't talk about it because we only had two tickets.  Monique and Brittany bought their tickets while I was trying to decide on coming.  We quickly figured out the plane tickets but when I went to buy a ticket to the Glennon event it was all sold out.  I was so bummed but Monique's sister Brittany insisted I still come and use her ticket.  She said it was what Glennon would do.  So I laughed and cried and said, no, no, no I can't do that.  And she said, yes, yes, yes you have to, under one condition--you can't talk all weekend sbout how amazing it was.  So I cried again and it was awful and awesome. So on Saturday morning Brittany dropped us off at the church.  She was still in her pj's and planning on getting a manicure somewhere.  Monique and I checked in, got our name tags and Monique bought a book.  She texted Brittany asking if she wanted her to buy her a book.  We found our seats and had about twenty minutes until the service started.  Brittany texted that she did want a book so Monique hurried down to get one.  A few minutes later she rushed back to her seat where her phone was and called Brittany.  While buying a book she overheard some event planners whispering about an extra ticket and she got it!  Brittany was dressed and in her seat within seven minutes of the phone call!!  It was amazing and we were all so happy!

Hearing Glennon speak and getting to meet her was wonderful.  It was very inspiring and a special experience to share with Monique and Brittany.  It went really well until it was time to hug Glennon and I literally managed to spit a good amount of spit out of my mouth when I tried to talk.  I could not stop talking and laughing about it the rest of day.  (Luckily I was already going in for the hug and the spit flew after passing Glennon's field of view--but still SOOO awful).

I'm so grateful to spend such a wonderful weekend with two friends I really adore!!

(I have lots of tidbits to share about the kids but I had to get this post done to keep my resolution of one blog post a week!!)