It’s been a long time since I shared a full-on weekend update, but since I’m trying so hard to return to the “real life documenting” of old-school blogging and I’m super behind on sharing life with you, how about a peek into all the things I did over the past three days?!
We’ve had a dance competition on our calendar since early October, but my small group was planning an overnight retreat for this past weekend and I was so bummed that I wasn’t going to be able to make it. I was experiencing a major case of FOMO, but there was no way I could send Ella off to compete without me (not to mention that I didn’t want to) and I couldn’t figure out how to make both things work. By some miracle, when the schedule came out last week, our team was only scheduled to dance on Sunday afternoon! We cancelled our Friday night reservation, Ella rode up to Chattanooga with a friend, and I headed to the lake after work on Friday night.
I’ll spare you the details, but Waze was not my friend this weekend and despite me entering a street address with a city and zip code, it took me to a similar address twenty miles away. It could have been much worse, so I won’t complain too much, but driving is already terrible with a big ole belly and driving twenty additional minutes was not on my agenda for the day! When I arrived to a darling house with the sweetest group of girls around the dining room table and a ginormous taco bar for dinner, my cup — and heart — was full. We spent the weekend eating (a lot), walking around the cutest lake neighborhood, laughing, playing hilarious games, and getting to know one another even more. I’ve been short on female friendships my entire adult life, so finding this small group has been such a blessing to me. We meet for fellowship and Bible study almost every Monday night and even though I rarely have time to fit it in, Josh is instrumental in making sure that I don’t feel guilty for missing a night of family time in order to make it as often as possible.
After dinner, we walked down to the water and I set up the timer on my camera to snap a photo of our entire group. We’re only missing two girls — one who came in later that night and one who couldn’t make it at the last minute — but I am so thankful to have this moment in time captured. First of all — Jenn, why do you look so cute when we were clear about wearing sweats? Also, why in the world do I look so awkward and where did that booty come from?! Pregnancy is weird.
I opted to sleep on the couch because I knew I wouldn’t sleep great on a mattress either and I would likely be the first person awake the next morning. I grabbed a cup of coffee, my book, and my Bible and worked on catching up on the 100 Day Project while I waited on the girls to wander in, one at a time.
Our friend, Jamie, is a chef and she made the most beautiful breakfast spread for us to enjoy before we all headed home later in the day. The bacon and eggs were delicious, but she made almond flour scones with cherries and almonds and Y’ALL, they were the best things I’ve had in weeks. We told her we needed a demonstration next time we were all together.
I was planning to head straight to Chattanooga from the lake, making the two hour drive closer to three and a half. I was so thankful to soak up some porch hangs with these ladies before I packed my car and headed north. I had no problems navigating my way home after lunch — thank goodness — and was able to chat with Josh on the phone for a bit and wave at him as we passed on the road. As much fun as I had without my family, I was already missing them something fierce after only one night away.
By the time I got to Tennessee, I was exhausted! Ella and the girls were watching some friends dance at the venue, so I checked into our hotel room and took a quick nap. I needed to stretch out a bit and prop up my legs after the long drive and the thirty minutes of hotel peace was well worth it. They picked up me a little later and we all headed across the bridge to our favorite ice cream place.
I’m so mad at myself for not taking photos of our cones, because they were HUGE and Ella & I ate every bite. She had mint chocolate chunk and I tried their coconut cream, which had crumbles of butter cookies mixed in. SO GOOD.
I didn’t take many photos that night, but we spent some time in our room and walked to Five Guys for dinner and then one of the moms took our girls back to the venue to watch a few solo dances.
The next morning, we scarfed down a hotel breakfast and the girls spent some time in the pool before they had to report for duty. I took full advantage of the sunshine and these comfy couches and got a little nap in, while I could.
The girls haven’t had the best season and I think they were really hoping to do well on stage at their final competition. I’m not sure what the difference was, but they nailed every dance and you could see in their faces that they were leaving it all on the stage.
Although each of their dances scored really well, their lyrical dance won overall for their age group and division, and their little surprised faces on stage were my favorite part of the whole weekend. They were already on stage as fourth place overall for their jazz dance, so when their lyrical song started playing for the first place title, they jumped up and rushed the announcer with the best faces ever. I hate I didn’t capture it on video, but you’ll have to take my word for it.
The photos below are the difference between the photos I usually share and the ones where Ella is yelling at me that she needs to finish passing out ribbons before she can pose for the camera!
She slept almost the entire drive home — except when she was stuffing her face with Zaxby’s — and we were both exhausted this morning trying to get out the door on time. Monday is going to call for early bedtimes for everyone involved!
P.S. I took all of these photos with my new camera and I am in love! The quality is probably better than my Canon T3i and it was so lightweight and handy to carry around this weekend. I’m going to put together a post for next week on why I love it and why I chose this model, so feel free to ask me any questions you might want answered in that post!
