I have been gone.

I haven't blogged for a while.
I was busy with editing a wedding, and then the last weekend in June I went to Boston for 4 days, and I'm just now getting back to normal.
I have tried several times to blog about my trip to Boston.
I can't do it.
I can't put into words how amazing it was - or the whole history behind the trip - it's too overwhelming I don't know where to begin.
I could give you the cliff notes version, but that would not really do it justice at all.
I'll have to start at the beginning.
Which is nearly 7 years ago.
Back then, I had just one little 7 month old baby. I'd been feeling rather poorly for a few weeks and was cruising around online looking for babystuff and reading up on what my baby should be doing when I stumbled about something called Babyzone.
At the time, there was a live chat going on, and I joined in with a bunch of strangers who welcomed me into their little mommy club. It was that night that I had mentioned I wasn't feeling well - and someone suggested I take a pg test. Since I had one upstairs, I told my new found chat buddies to hold on while I went an peed on a stick. I was more than a little surprised when it came back positive, and I shared the results with the online girls who were so supportive and excited for me.
The reactions I got from most people in real life were "again? already?" while the strangers online were full of "Congratulations" and "Great news!". I figured that I wanted to go through this pregnancy with the support of these women - some who were veteran mums, and others like myself who were still relatively new at it. So I joined the online community.
The following week I had an ultrasound that put me at 11 weeks.
Everyday I logged into my computer to chat with my mommy friends. This was the stage of life I was at - a relatively new mother, with another on the way, and since we were the first ones in our group of friends to have a baby, not too many could relate to the things I was experiencing. In fact, many of our friends were still single, so babies were not really the topic of conversation when we got together.
But.
When I logged into my computer - There were lots of mums waiting there for me. Lots of people who wanted to talk about babies, wanted to hear about my pregnancy, and just lots of things in common.
It came about in conversation one day, that some of these people actually lived in the same province - some actually quite close, and did anyone want to get together at the mall one day?
That is how I met Julie.
At the mall.
We had a blind date so to speak - but I knew the moment we met that we would become friends. She was so easy to talk to, and with a little girl close in age to Duncan, we had so much in common. We both loved shopping for our kids, and the conversation wasn't ever awkward. Indeed, making friends as an adult has been MUCH easier than it was as a kid.
Julie and I had such a good first meeting - that we arranged to meet again.
and again.
and again.
and again.
Flash foreward a few years - and we have become great friends - sharing good times, and hard times, laughter and heartache, and then we were both expecting again - our youngest children born just over 61/2 weeks apart. We both moved the same year into new houses- not too far away, and close enough to each other that we could still go shopping, and have BBQ's and celebrate b-days and our friendship deepened and grew. Even our husbands liked each other. I am grateful that I found that mommy club so many years ago - because it led me to one of the greatest friends anyone could ever hope to have.
Although we are similar in many ways - we have our differences too - and great respect for each other. I can say that I truly love her, and her family - She has become like family to me.
Which leads me to Boston (I'm getting to that, oh yes I am).
So over the past 6 years - There have been many other women that I chat with regularly online that I had never met - mostly because they lived in far away places like England, and all over the US from Seattle to....Boston.
Still, we would not let distance keep us apart - because from our computers, we got to know each other.
We shared pictures of our children, and little tidbits of our lives, and we laughed and chatted and became friends who sought each other out.
We lifted each other up. We shared our hopes, and dreams, our children's funny stories, and we vented to each other about life and we listened to each other when times were tough. We cried with each other when faced with the reality of losing a loved one and we rejoiced with each other when a new life was brought into the world.
Indeed these people in the computer were my friend, even though we'd never laid eyes on each other.
For some of them who like Julie and I, live fairly close together - they would get together for meetups and playdates and one time we even joked about going to Boston for fun and meeting some of those people.
And so we did.
Last February.
We drove 500 miles in a snowstorm to meet some wonderful girls in Boston - and it was amazing. We laughed and shopped and realized that these people on the other side of the computer screen are REAL - they are genuine and easy to get along with and know where all the premium outlets are!. Of course a weekend is hard to pull off with a 10 hr drive each way - and so we parted with good memories and only a little bit of sadness. Some of the girls who were flying into Boston for that weekend had their flights cancelled due to bad weather so we didn't get to meet them afterall.
But then
we planned to meet again. Only this time it wasn't just us and the Boston girls. It mushroomed. More and more people wanted to join us for a weekend. And so we began to plan another meetup.
More preparation for this one - and more people coming. 3 countries represented. People coming from England Canada and the US. We started chatting with each other every night - Setting up webcams and telephone calls.
We confessed our insecurities about meeting each other - not that any of us were nervous about meeting anyone else - but more about how we thought others would perceive us.
I'm quite certain to any outsider that we would seem completely mad and certifiable insane to travel by plane train and automobile to converge in Boston with a group of women that we had never met in person before, but It just didn't feel that way. I knew these women. we have spent so many evenings together chatting about our families and life and sharing our sorrows and fears and concerns and of course laughing - always the laughing, so it didn't seem strange at all to us - in fact it seemed strange that we hadn't met in real life, because these are very real friends - and we should be able to say that we've at least set eyes upon them and given a real hug, not a cyber one.
And so the great meetup was planned. Originally we were going to do New York City, but we changed it to Boston. Having loved it so much in February, and having locals who knew where to eat, and where the shopping was, the point of the trip was not so much tourism as it was about being together - so we picked a more comfortable and less expensive city and we began to plan.
for 3 months we anxiously looked forward to the great meetup, Group messaging nearly every evening and making plans, booking hotels and deciding what we would do when we were actually all together for real.
The anticipation was fun - the excitement building for a girls weekend without our husbands or children - it was just all about us, and it was exciting.
Finally after many many weeks of waiting and countdowns and "can you believe it's almost here" it was in fact upon us.

Julie and I left early in the morning (5:30ish) for the 10 hr trip. She is the best person to travel with because not only does her husband make super duper detailed maps, but she also brings amazing music. We are likeminded traveling companions - both of us anxious to get to our destination, but enjoying the ride and each other's company. There are very few people I could spend 20 hours in a car with and not be annoyed with - and Julie just makes the trip that much better.

When we did arrive we had planned to sneak into our room and compose ourselves - travelling for 10 hours does not exactly leave one feeling refreshed and ready to present themselves in the best light, so we managed to get all our luggage onto the elevator and were sneaking toward our room when we were 'caught' by Helen who was just stepping out of her room for something and just by coincidence happened to be right outside the elevators as we were getting off!

Of course at that moment we just forgot about getting to our rooms because LOOK, a real live person who looks like her pictures, and sounds like her phone voice and is 10 times more wonderful in person because we can be right there in the same time zone and hug and laugh and we did! And it was wonderful.
The whole weekend was wonderful, indescribable really. These women that I have known for anything from 7months to 7 years (nearly) - it was more like a reunion than a first meeting.
Since we had been to Boston and met the local girls a few months earlier it WAS a reunion of sorts - it was our 2nd time meeting but due to the excitement and anticipation it was equally wonderful to see our friends AGAIN.

4 days with the greatest, most kind hearted, generous, hysterically funny and beautiful people, both inside and out.
We laughed. We cried. We laughed some more. We did touristy things, and shopping things and ate things but the best thing - the absolute best part of the weekend was the evenings when we would gather in one of the hotel rooms and just be together - silly, laughing, telling stories - being ourselves. This is what I loved, and these were my friends! Lifelong wonderful friends that I cannot imagine not seeing again. We will meet again - maybe in Boston, maybe somewhere else, but we will meet again.

A weekend (even a 4 day one) didn't seem long enough - and although we all missed our families (or rather our families really missed US!) It was just so much fun that went by all too quickly.

So now I am back home - Quite a welcome home from my kiddos who I had never left that long before, and my husband who has a deep appreciation for me and I am filled with wonderful memories and an even deeper love for my friends who are so much more amazing in real life.

And I should add, that all those years ago when I joined that online community, was the day that I found out I was pregnant with Matthew. He has just turned 6 yrs old, and lost his first tooth (yesterday) and because of him, I went looking for baby related stuff online and found so much more. Thankyou to my best friend and to all the Boston girls for being so much more!