Modern day pen pals

Nine years ago, when I was pregnant with Amelia I met a bunch of other soon-to-be mom's on an online Babycenter parenting board. Eventually, when our babies were about 6 months old, a small group of us formed our own sub-group of "workout mamas" as we started focusing on getting back into shape and wanted some support and accountability.

I have "talked" almost daily with those 8-10 women for the last eight years. They comforted me through lay-offs and moves, they encouraged me through nursing school and training for half-marathons, they've made me laugh like crazy, given me some of my favorite recipes, and kept me eating healthy and working out all this time.

And this summer we decided it was time to meet in real life. I had already met one of these women--my friend Jennifer lives in Chelan, Washington and grew up with my good Porltand-now-Seattle friend Nancy. When we discovered this connection, we met up for the first time about six years ago in Portland and have hung out several times including our lovely visit last summer to stay with Jen at her lake house.

Due to scheduling and finances, only five of us were able to meet up, and we decided Seattle was the place to meet. It was a little bizarre to go to the airport to pick up women I've never met to come stay at my house for the weekend, but I had Jennifer there with me in case Heidi turned out to be "Heidi." (Please, for your sake, do not google "cross-dresser." I thought I'd find some innocent Halloween-ish photos to plug in here. Not so. You can't unsee what came up.)

On the drive home from the airport we were all pretty nervous. Kolby said when we got home that night he was a little worried about us. But we stayed up until 2am talking and laughing...oh my gosh the laughing...and when he came out the next morning we were all sitting around in our pajamas drinking coffee--and still laughing--and he stopped worrying. (He took our girls to Portland for the weekend. To escape the laughing.)

I think the nervousness we all felt at the beginning was reconciling the voices, accents, and mannerisms with the personalities we'd gotten to know in writing over the years. It took a little time for those pieces to fit together, but within a couple of hours, it was like I'd known these girls for years. Which I have.

We did a lot of exploring Seattle: Capitol Hill, Pike's Place, Belltown, Fremont.

I think our favorite afternoon was kayaking on Lake Union. We bought cheese, salmon, mussels, and bread from Pike's Place and I made a Pacific Northwest dinner for them at home one night.

But by far the best time we had was just sitting around and talking.

We decided this weekend was a retreat. It was so relaxing and therapeutic. I can't remember the last time I've laughed that much. And I always love cooking for people and showing off this city that I love. It went by much too quickly, but we won't let another eight years go by before we do it again. And next time it'll be the whole crew. Hopefully Annette doesn't turn out to be "Annette." (Seriously. Don't google it.)