grateful

we had one of those great weekends that left me grateful for many things. primarily that UGA is so close.

dan had planned on heading over to athens late friday night to bring savannah home.

she was needing to pick up her car, which was here for repairs and wanting to cheer on madison & emi in their debut cheer competition.

well, precious bailey worked out the logistics & drove from ole miss over to uga to surprise her & bring her home.

& surprise her she did!!!

they pulled in during the wee hours of the night while the rest of us slept.

saturday morning i woke up with all four of my girls under the same roof. i was able to walk into her usually empty room & wake her.

the little things.

while she's been home twice since move in day & writing wonderful things on her facebook wall including "is home.weird" and "thanks for the best boring lilburn weekend ever" ( to bailey).

i can't help but think she loves a little family time. 

especially since she was able to trade out one pair of my lucchese's for another.

truth be told, she loved being home. she said so.

it does my heart good to hear her over the moon happy & loving her college life.

it does my heart good to hear her live & in person, sitting across from the table from me too.

 (the name tag was just one of their silly shenanigans)

we headed out & cheered on madison & emily for their competition. they did great!

this is year #5 for us having at least one competing. madison spent 11 years in dance/ballet & loves the competition dance part of cheerleading. & freshman emi did fantastic too & never stopped smiling!

so proud of them!

 

we shopped & talked & ate out & hung with bailey & went to church together & ate some more.

one of the treats i was thrilled about was while bailey & savannah were home, it was abby's homecoming.

the four of us plus another close friend of mine spent our wednesday evenings for a couple years, leading a group of 18-20something middle schoolers.

i love abby. she holds a huge special place in my heart. & bailey's & savannah's too!

we headed over like weirdo creeper stalker people & made her laugh during her homecoming photos.

we yelled things like "make good choices" and "be a good girl" as she & 40+ other friends/adults all headed out. the great thing about abby is she's so awesome that i don't even think we embarrassed her. we embarrassed our selves, but not her.

abby's in a different school district so we really looked like weirdo creepy stalker people

i mean, who does that?

but

i haven't laughed that much in ages.

& yes her mama has a great camera

but i brought mine along too. of course.

abby looked drop dead gorgeous & those photos will deserve a post of their own.

caroline spent a considerable amount of her free time searching the perfect halloween costume online. & don't judge me, i haven't purchased it yet, but the leader in her book is the lady gaga costume.

for kids. of course. & no, it doesn't consist of red meat.

sunday afternoon rolled around entirely too quickly.

i hugged goodbye to bailey. wished her luck as rush at ole miss starts up next week.

saw she & smk hugging outside before she drove off. 

gets me every time.

trevor came by and said hello quickly.

between bailey & trevor, i could not ask for smk to be surrounded by two better life long friends.

i love those kids & love how they bring out the best in each other.

went outside to send them off & wondered at what point i'd be able to do this "see you soon. i sure love you" thing without being teary.  gosh i'm teary now.

& just to think...i get to do this again next year with my sweet abby.

may i never take wonderful great simple 

 "boring" weekends for granted.

~~~

my gratitude journal includes:

summer days slipping into breezy autumn afternoons

college kids home for visits

colleges that aren't too far away

life long friends

highschool senior girls who make good choices

& 6 people all under the same roof

xo