Mi Querida Familia: A Lovely Weekend

A little over a month ago, I wrote about a group of my best girlfriends who'd be coming to my house for the weekend, several of whom I'd never met before. The group was formed to help Sarah collaborate on her book 31 Days to Lovely, but after the project was finished, we all had fallen in love with each other and decided it was too good a thing to end! So we didn't! Sarah re-named us The Lovelies, and we've been doing life together online ever since.

Until last weekend, when 6 of these ladies came in from around the country to spend the weekend at my house and do a little life in 3D. You'd have thought we've known each other for years, if you heard the excited screams and giggles as we all met. Christi drove from Louisianna to Texas and joined Beth. The two of them drive north to New Mexico to pick up Sarah and Cindy. Then the four of them drive further north to my house. I missed getting pictures when they showed up... I was too busy hugging and jumping and yelling. ;) Shortly afterwards, Jennifer (who also lives in Colorado Springs) met us and then we all made our way to the airport to pick up Tiff, who flew in from Washington.

(pics by Sarah)

We started the weekend with a late night dinner at the Melting Pot.

(pic by Sarah)

This is Blake, our server. He bantered with us and blanched when he realized that we weren't kidding when we said I just might go into labor right there at the table and that I was already having contractions. We told him that if I give birth on the dinner table our meal would be on him, and he said that was fine, so long as we name the baby Blake.

(pic by Sarah)

And then we prayed over him. He probably thought we were the weirdest group of women he'd ever served, but it was a divine connection and many of us have been praying for him ever since.

The weekend was filled with so. much. fun. This is Tiff, doin' her photographer thang.

There was spontaneous group prayer. Lots of it!

On Friday morning, we heard screams of excitement from the basement and those of us who were upstairs waited for those who were downstairs to come up and fill us in. And guess what!?

Yup! Christi's pregnant!!

Show us a good prego-pose, girl!

Calling her husband:

The best part for me? Alejandro had prophesied this pregnancy when God spoke to him about it at Sarah's house 4 months ago.

Beth brought each of us little glass chickens, because this post had us all in stitches one evening and we've been joking about it ever since. I echo Tiff's words in warning you that the views on marriage expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the values of the Lovelies. Nor does the use of the F-word. You have been warned, if your kids can read, keep them off your lap while you check this out.

My kitchen has never been so full or so busy. This is Tiff, man-handling an actual chicken.

See what I mean? Full. of. food.

Saturday we celebrated Shabbat (Sabbath) by sleeping in super late,

staying in our pajamas all day and studying scripture.

I've never had an experience like this before. We studied for about 4 or 5 hours. No joke. It was SO rich!! And not the least bit tiring. It was AMAZING!

Please note... we all look twice as wide in the following picture, due to the panoramic iphone app. But it's a cool picture.

(pic by Tiff)

Then we worshipped as Cindy and Sarah led us.

And then we sat around and laughed and studied and worshipped and talked some more. 'Cause that's what six moms do on a weekend without their kids and only their best girlfriends.