"Wanna Go to Birmingham"

2 weekends ago, M and I were planning on having a nice weekend here in Houston... I had been out of town the two weekends beforehand, work had been pretty exhausting, etc... Until my boss decided to call into my room on Thursday afternoon to inform me that our case load was slow for Friday, so I was getting the day off.   Not only that, but as soon as my case was done, I could leave early... Perk of working in the OR.  My first thought was, oh this is great, I can get the cleaning done, run errands, catch up on some of my TV shows while Matthew is at work... I quickly came to the conclusion that that particular plan was incredibly boring and stupid and instead I immediately hopped onto my email and wrote Matthew these lines, "GUESS WHAT?  I'm off work tomorrow...Wanna go to Birmingham?!"

About 11 hours later, after running home to pack and grab Lexi, and then a short 10 hour ride, we were pulling in to J and K's adorable new house right in the heart of Homewood, AL...Felt good to be home, people.  I know, 10 hours is a LONG drive, but it honestly felt more like 7 or 8, most likely due to the fact that every 30 minutes M and I would look over and say, "Aren't you so excited we're doing this?!"  

Due to the craziness of the situation, neither M nor I remembered that M's parents had already made plans to be in Birmingham that weekend, added bonus after J reminded us.  We woke up Friday morning just an hour or two before his parents got there.  We spent the morning taking sweet Sam to the park, and then met Geoff for lunch at Newks.  I could have driven the 10 hours just to eat a Newks Q :)   After lunch we headed downtown to M's old lab to say hello to all of his former co-workers, and then headed back to J and K's to hang out that afternoon.  Friday night we met all of our closest friends, Drew, Katie, and McNeill, Holly Beth and Blake, and the Charles and Cara at Davenports.  It was SUCH a blessing to be able to see our friends again...we have been missing them SO much.  We spent hours catching up; it felt like we had never left.  We stayed Friday night with Charles and Cara, got up Saturday morning to eat breakfast with all the same people.  Had to fit in as much time as possible!

I'm a big boy!

Sweet McNeill

Love my wonderful friends!

I don't think she could be any cuter!

Beautiful Bham.

 After breakfast we headed to meet the WHOLE Hardison fam at a pumpkin patch just north of Bham.  Benj and Morgan decided to drive down from Nashville to meet us for the day and ended up staying that night!  Afterwards we hit up Milo's for lunch....I could have also driven 10 hours just to eat there...and spent the rest of the afternoon watching college football.  Pretty much a perfect Saturday.

Benj and Beau

Cutest little family.

I'm one happy girl.

Saturday night we had already made plans to stay with Ed and Shawn.  Shawn had offered to cook, which is something you NEVER turn down.  A week or 2 beforehand, I had told him on the phone how I had been craving his spaghetti bolognese...thankfully he remembered :)  We spent the evening watching football on Ed's ginormous 60inch TV, eating, and falling asleep before 10:30.

Sunday we got up so we could go worship with our former church family at Homewood.  Words cannot describe how wonderful it was to walk in and see so many familiar faces.  We have missed being at Homewood a lot.  We were very blessed to have been a part of that church family.  Who knows?  Maybe someday we will return!

After church, M and I decided it would be best to go ahead and get on the road... After getting Milo's again...shameful.  This time the trip felt a little more like 10 hours, but still worth every minute we spent in that car.  So thankful to have gotten to spend a weekend back in the Magic City.  We miss our former home!