Destin 2012

God has had a sweet way of taking care of me over the years. I am abundantly blessed by these girls' friendships. Two decades ago, God wove our lives together in such a way that a lifetime of friendships was born. These girls have added riches upon riches to my life.

Katherine, Dana, Lauri, Me

As with all friendships, there are lots of miles and roads traveled together after that many years. When we all graduated high school, I knew we'd stay friends through college and beyond, but I didn't truly have the foresight to imagine sharing the marriage or parenting {or vacation, for that matter} chapters together. As those chapters began, I realized I couldn't imagine any stage of life from here on out without them.

What started out as our "family" of four, has grown into a "family" of 17 (19, counting Lauri and Jeff's other two boys who weren't here). I shouldn't put "family" in quotes. We are family. My boys know this crew as their aunts, uncles and cousins. It's been that way since Jacob, the oldest of these kids, was born.

Life has become busy these last few years. Lots of dying to self to take care of precious little ones. Lots of life change – leaving old careers behind to start new ones at home. Miles that separate. Life to be tended to and love to give.

With these nine sweet little lives in the picture, our visits became short and rushed as other priorities arose. And so we made a bold plan to gather in one house, for one week, for what would either be a great vacation we'd want to do again, or one that would leave us questioning our sanity when we planned this whole thing. Turns out, we weren't so crazy after all. We left with talk of Gulf Shores in 2014. =)

While our trip was full of all the fun things that a beach vacation brings, the thing that I will take away most from this trip is feeling so inspired by these girls. By their involvement in their kids' lives, by their ways of parenting, by their desire to be better and do better for themselves and their families, by their transparency, by their commitment to being intentional. Amazing women, mothers and wives. Love getting to learn and grow from them.

This was most definitely a vacation for the memory books. And hopefully the first of many more to come. As I catch up on blog posts, I'll try to sprinkle in a few more pictures here and there. In the meantime, I'll leave you with some of my favorites that Lauri took of our family. THANK YOU, Lauri!