Good for the soul...

Today is the first day at 100% following Maybe Flu Round Three.  Mom left yesterday and I felt pretty good.  I was wiped but functional.  But today, I felt fine.  

Oh, I'm still wiped.  I have a toddler.  It's just normal wiped though and not flu wiped.

Feeling good was a plus considering we had a play date planned back in our previous city.  Still amazes me it takes an hour to get there but it does.  

Last night, I packed lunches and diaper bags and got dinner ready to go in the crock pot for tonight.  I also picked out my outfit because yes, I am a dork and I felt a little like a giddy school girl getting to see my friends.  

Which makes me more of a dork?  

Moving around isn't the easiest thing.  In fact, it can be pretty all around yucky.  But you (and by "you" I mean me) get used to it.  This move, overall, has been relatively easy.  Comparatively.  We only moved an hour away, after all, so the daily scenery changed but not the overall territory.  If that makes sense.  

Like, we didn't have to learn new TV channels.  That always seems so daunting.  

First world problems.

But with every move, I lose history.  You don't really understand how important having a history with people, groups and places is until you don't have a history.  

It's like going on a zillion first dates.  

You have to meet and get to know new people, new organizations, and even new stores.  Because really, not every Target is laid out exactly the same and they do change some of their merchandise based on the area's demographics.  

Again, first world problems.

Thanks to the absolute brilliance of social media, I can keep up with the friends we move away from now.  Couldn't do that when we started this life of ours in 2000.  

Seriously.  There was no Facebook in 2000.  

My children will never believe that.

Or my children will wonder what the heck Facebook was.  

As with every move, there comes a point when my life in our new home takes over more of my thoughts and energy than the life in our previous home.  Generally takes a year, maybe a little more, for that to happen.  This fall I exited out of the FB groups from our previous church.  

(Okay, true confession, FB outed me.  They did this fancy update where you can see how many people and who saw a post in the group.  I was totally down with stalking when I was anonymous but not doing it out in the open.)

Regardless, it was time to make the change.  But that left me feeling a little...withdrawn...from my friends' lives.  Slowly, and the newborn helped, my life here took over.  Small group became grounded (again, does that make sense?), fell in love with our pastor (that's really a process, y'all), learned my way around every grocery store in town and settled into a nice routine in our new life.  

But...I still miss my friends.  

And that is why, I was up past my bedtime picking out a still-have-baby-weight-to-lose-but-want-to-look-cute-cause-I-hope-we-get-pictures outfit.  

The kiddos seemed to have a good time together.  The babies specifically were enthralled with everything going on.  Rhys never stopped moving.  Kyle didn't move at all.  And Annabelle fit nicely in the middle of the boys.  Aubrey Kate, Jack and James played really well together.  They all needed to be reminded to share but overall, they were great.  Still a lot of parallel play going on but they are following each other from one thing to another much more now.  So precious.

There's just something wonderful about friends with history.  It's good for my soul.  A breath of fresh air.  I needed them today.  Been needing them for a while.  But it was worth the wait.  

And totally worth a few extra minutes in the closet picking out my outfit.

Jennifer, me and Cindy...plus some of the kiddos willing to participate.

AK decided she wanted a picture after the fact.  Of course.

Is it wrong that I find comfort in Jack not wanting his picture taken either?

Babies!  Annabelle, Kyle and Rhys.  Annabelle is 10 days older than Rhys and Kyle is 3 weeks behind Rhys.