#10

As I mentioned on Friday, this past weekend was the 10th anniversary celebration of Women's Group!


Natalie, Rachel, Heather, Abby and Jenn



I first met these girls in January, 2003 when I was still relatively new to Denver. My mom and Jenn and Natalie's mom had been in Bible study together and thought it would be fun for us to meet. Thankfully, we all hit it off splendidly and a friendship was formed.

Well done, moms.

Jenn and Rachel had grown up together and, between the two of them, somehow knew all of us yet we did not know each other. So, the WG was born out of a way to bring us together. And without it, many of us would have never crossed paths.

Like myself, some of us are not from around here.

Kim had just moved from Iowa to take a teaching job. Abby had just been married, graduated college and was beginning a teaching job far away from her Chicago childhood. And I was knee-deep in studying international something-something while also recovering from mononucleosis. Needless to say, my social life needed some help.

For the others, Denver was home.

Jenn was just returning from college as a nurse, Natalie and Rachel were already working and Heather was busy as a teacher in a nearby school district.

There have been a few other girls that were part of WG at one time or another, but they had to leave for various reasons. But the seven of us of have remained.

So, to commemorate these past 10 years, we decided to spend a night away from our normal routines and celebrate! (Sadly, Kim could not join us because of her schedule.) We packed our bags and we all piled into one hotel suite downtown. A few of us had facials and manicures, we all thoroughly enjoyed the complimentary drinks and appetizers at the hotel and then, miracle of miracles, all six of us got ready in one bathroom and hit the town for dinner.

It rained that night, which is highly unusual for this time of year, or any time of year for Colorado. But we didn't let that stop us as we headed to one of the best restaurants in town. We dined on fresh cheese and bread, salads and hand-made pizzas.

And to keep things classy and frugal, we hit up Walgreen's for chocolate and crashed in our room, talking until 2:00 a.m.

(The two big questions of the night:
1. If you could do any Olympic sport, what would it be?
2. If you had to have cosmetic surgery, what would you get done?

I chose swimming and a butt reduction, in that order.)

The next morning, we slept in as late as possible while still giving us enough time to eat breakfast at the buffet downstairs. And then we sat, talking and laughing, some of us crying, until they started vacuuming around our table. We decided that this must become an annual tradition: 24 hours of togetherness, without husbands, babies (or nephews) and lots of time to eat, talk and celebrate.

It's the least we can do after investing so much time together!
To read more about this fun weekend, feel free to visit Abby's blog too!