Carolina Girls...seriously, the BEST in the world!

The last week in June was a much anticipated weekend. Sometime around January, my Carolina Girls and I plotted a weekend away for some much needed girl time. It took many texts and calendar adjustments and several husbands and grandparents, but we found ONE weekend the entire summer where we were all free.

And boy was it worth the effort! We packed up our bathing suits, our flip flops, and one 3 month old baby, and headed to Myrtle Beach to stay in Jennifer's family beach house.

Friday night, we ate seafood. YUM.

Saturday, we hit the beach in between dark clouds and made the most of some sketchy weather. But it was pretty fantastic to be able to sit and read a magazine (clouds and all) and a homemade "beach" tomato sandwich.


Jennifer and I had coordinating Vera towels...but her's had a cute baby bump indented in it. :-)

We planned a special surprise for Saturday evening. As soon as Heidi went to take a shower, we leapt into action and transformed the house into a surprise Bachelorette party!
Elliott made a guest appearance....he's definitely made his rounds to our Bachelorette parties!

The beautiful Bachelorette!

Selfies with Elliott

Getting ready to head out for some dancing!


Broadway at the Beach pretty much hasn't changed since 2001-ish when we first made our appearance as a group. It was nice to be "home" again...however, we definitely wore more comfortable shoes.

Gosh, I love these girls so much. (When do I start referring to ourselves as "women?" Not anytime soon, I'm guessing. :-))

Life has taken us in a million different directions since we graduated college 12 years ago. But, we have such a strong bond, and the only word to really describe being with them is just "comfortable." Being with these girls is like being home. It's being with family. It's peaceful, it's easy, it's just wonderful. We talk a lot about how much we just love our "togetherness." What it boils down to is that it doesn't matter what we are doing, we just have to be together doing it.

We have a group text always running active on our phones. We share our prayer requests, our joys and celebrations, wedding planning updates, and funny kid stories. That group text has been my lifeline many days. Not many groups of friends can say over the course of just 9 days they have lost a parent, gotten engaged, and birthed a baby. We've done it all. And we've done it together.

These days, we have our own sets of friends in our "normal," daily lives (co-workers, mom friends, church friends, neighbors, etc). We have found, over time, that we parent our children differently, we eat differently, we worship differently, and we even medicate differently. But all that doesn't matter when we are together. There is so much mutual love and respect between the 6 of us, that no difference, no time, no distance, nothing at all can push us apart.

Cause, remember, we are all about "togetherness." :-)

These girls are my sisters. They are my family. I pray that one day Brooklyn finds friends like the ones I have found in my life. They are one of my life's big blessings, and I am so grateful for them and the time we do share together.

Now, with that being said, it's about that time to starting planning our Christmas party...so get out your calendars, girls!