Me: "We're going to spend a week at a lake house with Chris' friends."
Friend: "Oh, really. Fun! How many people?"
Me: *counting families on my hands* "Seven families."
Friend: "I'm sorry, I thought you said seven FAMILIES. You mean seven PEOPLE?"
Me: "Nope. I mean seven families."
Friend: "That sounds more like insanity and less like vacation."
Honestly, it's a trip we look forward to each year. One whole week where we can relax, be ourselves, have happy hour without the need of a designated driver or babysitter and just...breathe.
The Lake trip with Chris' childhood friends. It never disappoints. We begin the countdown to the next year the second we pull away from the house. These are some of the finest men I have the privilege to know. And they married some very fun women to boot. There's a bond with these guys that is so unique and precious, I often find myself in awe when I watch them together. They share a lifetime (quite literally) of history. They've been there for each other's major (and minor) milestones, heartbreaks and accomplishments.
And after fifteen years together, I forget that I wasn't ALWAYS a part of them. There are parts of me that they don't know...like my childhood. Today, in the early morning hours, when the rain was gently falling and the children weren't yet awake, a few of us were sipping our coffee together in the common room. The subject came up about what some of the wives were all like as children. And the three of us wives that were in the room shared a sneak peek into OUR childhoods. We laughed in hysterics, gasped in disbelief and listened with interest.
There we sat...adding to the memories. Letting in our own shadows of the past.
