Friday in Phoenix

So far, Mady beat me bad at Candyland, we had our chocolate fix at the Cheesecake Factory, enjoyed some Arizona sunshine and wore out the littlest member of our party.

The girls made one batch of chocolate chip cookies...Ours really overcooked and John showed us up with mad baking skills on the second batch! Then it was time for a little hand print Pinterest craft project, and on to tea parties with Snow White before bedtime books with Doc McStuffins. I think we are all pretty exhausted. The grownups crashed half way through watching Bridesmaids.

How was your Friday? This chic has so much to learn before AO hits this stage!

BFF Kimberly - Off to Phoenix!

We've been friends for years. Seriously...It makes me feel old just thinking about it. Her parents transferred to a little bitty rental house next door to my family when they first moved to New Hope around 1990.  I remember sitting on the floor of her bedroom playing the game of  Life. How appropriate for us.  They didn't stay in that house long, but Kimberly and I have been friends ever since. So far, we've been through first boyfriends, first kisses, churches and church trips, going with me on my first date (which her mom took us on!), sleepovers and even more sleepovers, transferring high schools (I'm still devastated about this one), a Tom Cruise crush, proms, bad breakups, college decisions, trips to LA and New York and everywhere in between, more boy drama, then finally both meeting our Johns. Then it was more serious talk about marriage, air force, deployments,  growing our faith, being a wife, raising our babies, work, and every relationship in between. She's my rock. She never judges. But she will seriously tell me I'm crazy if I need it.

We've been there from moves to colleges and Seminary in Dallas, Texas, about 15 different houses and apartments in Columbus, Mississippi,  my little family moving to Tuscaloosa, the Ryan's to Phoenix, Arizona the first time, then Sumter, SC, then back to Phoenix.  But when we need each other, we can tell it. And we make time. Even if it is just for a four hour phone call about nothing just because we needed a break from life to laugh.

We stood by each other as maid of honor when we got married to our boys both named John.

 

We were there when we both had our first babies.

And we were there for everything in between. It's so incredibly rare for your childhood best friend to grow up and STILL be your best friend. We've been blessed.

But now, Kimberly's had a tragedy that I can't shake from my core. She lost a child. She was there for me when I had our miscarriage and got pregnant again, but it's nothing like loosing a child who should have survived. She had to plan a funeral for her child. Who was a perfectly healthy girl. Who had a name. When you think everything will be fine, only to hear those words "Ava didn't make it". Just a freak, freak, accident. Who has to deal with something so gut wrenching like loosing a child? Especially during childbirth - something most of us completely take for granted as a blessing and a bright spot in our memories?  Loosing a child that should be here now. Why her, God. Why? 

I still have the voicemail from John on my phone. And I remember the words from Kimberly. I hurt because she hurts. It makes me so sad to think about her pain of not being able to bring Ava home. 

To give her all the love her little life could stand.

But today, I'm leaving on a jet plane to hug her neck. And I'm excited. :-) Lots of chocolate and laughter in my near future. You should be very jealous.  

Not sure Phoenix can handle us in the same zipcode. Even if it is just for the weekend. :-)

Family Really is Everything

In order to know where we are in life, sometimes you need to know where we've been for it all to make sense. 

For the first years or so of my life, Christmas eves were spent at my MawMaw and PawPaw's, opening presents from Aunts and Uncles and watching for Rudolph's nose in the sky with Uncle Bruce. Once the Sansing family started changing generational hands, my Daddy took it upon himself to make sure we keep the traditions alive. Now we meet for Sansing Christmas at the Camp. 

For the past 33 Christmases, I've gone to my Pop and Granny's on Christmas day.  Junkin Christmas was a little different this year, too. We had it early, at my Mama's house. There were no traditional pictures in front of the tree with unintentionally coordinated outfits. It was different, but a good different. It's a hard pill to swallow when generations and patriarchs leave. But, I am ever-so-thankful that both sides of my family view family togetherness and family relationships as the most important thing in life.  They really do. I'm closer to some of my second and third cousins than most people are to their first cousins. Some of my first cousins (that's you Danielle and Brock) are more like siblings to me. And we're closer than most siblings. And to us, it's absolutely normal.  Family is the only way to keep tradition and family values alive. We actually love each other....and for the most part, (GASP) actually really like each other!  

The new era in the family is a little different. People these days are more scattered. Mama's and GrandMama's have to go to work. Daddy's have to work on the weekend. We can't go to my Mama's and have lunch every Sunday for Arleigh and Swayze to make their own memories, and it really stinks. The thought of me and Brock fighting over the last chicken leg at Maw Maws, creating mysteries in the scary closet, almost stepping on a rattlesnake, milking cows, gathering eggs, feeding goats, feeding our summer watermelon rinds to the hogs....the list for our "old" Sundays goes on and on. 

Or the fact that Arleigh can't just get off the bus at NanO's every day. She's not going to spend nearly as much time with her grandparents as I did throughout my childhood. Granny's was HOME for me. And it's not that we don't want Arleigh to grow up the old way, but for the fact that miles are between us now.

I learned to cook and put on a spread from Granny. I learned hospitality from Granny. I learned values and love from Granny. My secrets died when she did. Just like Josh learned everything from Pop. They were our neighbors and our grandparents. It was our own little island away from the world. When I'd run away from home, I'd run through the woods to my Granny. (And my Uncle Richard, too.) There we were perfect. There we were loved. There we got to be kids. Real kids, with no TV (oh the horror!). We'd get off the bus in the afternoon and be greeted with a special snack and half of one of Pop's canned cokes. On rainy days as a treat we would play in the junk room upstairs. We'd play dress up, store, library....or (my favorite role) Shirley Temple from the littlest princess. (With my pretend fire place while I read books on apple boxes.) And can you even imagine...My favorite books growing up - My granny's and my Mama's. I loved Nurse Cherry Ames, the old Nancy Drew, all of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Box Car Children, anything by Grace Livingston Hill or Louisa May Alcott. (I've often said I was born in the wrong era! Bet you didn't know that about me!) When it was pretty, we played in the barn, picked catawba worms, peas, or muscidimes, went fishing (but you better have Pop's permission), played behind the old chicken coop in our pretend play house that didn't exist. Or when we got older and would go down in the bottom, and cross a fallen tree to our little island in a washed out gully and play war with sling shots and find pieces of old bottles and broken china, because of course our island was the middle of an old dump. A whole different world from the way Arleigh gets to grow up now. A world most kids - and even adults today - have never seen. A world where you couldn't mow grass, fish or even hunt on Sundays. They were about church and family. A world where Grandmothers were always home, and always would stir up something special just for you...just because you were you. A world where you put on a spread every night for supper, because that was your gift to the family. It was a very different world, but a beautiful, much simpler world.

That's our biggest challenge as a family. How do you still let kids be kids? I didn't grow up with Mario Brothers. I grew up with a real brother.  We didn't have those kind of things.  How do you make sure family gets to still be family? How do you make sure that kids spend enough time with family to really understand where they came from and where they are going?

We're all a work in progress, aren't we. Figuring it out day by day. That's my challenge to myself for 2013. More family time, and then even more. We've only got one family, and I want Arleigh to know how important it really is to who you are as a person.  We're lucky, because my family is made up of pretty awesome individuals that would be great influences, in their own way, on Arleigh. I want her to be well rounded because she's made from a village of people. How do you do? Do you let others influence your child, or do you think it's all on you?

PB&J beach trip 2010

If you don't know this already, I consider myself an honorary daughter in the Hall clan. As a matter of fact, PB&J is the little nickname for the three amigos - Penny, Brooke and Jen. ROAD TRIP!!!

We did the typical beach trip - Off to Perdido Key, LULUS with our personal serenade,  mexican, a movie day crashing on the couch because of the rain, big ole beach chair rentals, the pool, Lamberts, and peach cobbler on the way home at the farmers market. (At the giant strawberry, for those who make the trip!) 

Brock (my first cousin and one of my inner circle) let us use his condo for a quick little girly trip to the beach. It was so nice to be chillaxin listening to the waves, and his condo is gorgeous!!

A little Hall girl tradition, KRISPY KREME!

 We came back and spent one more vacation day at the pool. Although, the view from my pool is a little different with a pond view instead of the ocean. No sounds of waves crashing here, only frogs and mosquitoes buzzing.  I have gotta get the rest of the photos off of my camera!

Lake Mitchell

I have pretty awesome neighbors. Todd and Beth are on one side of the cul-de-sac, Georgia's across the street, Brooke and the K's are down the street, not to mention the others I *heart* in this neighborhood.

One Sunday, Georgia and Leonard invited us to head to Lake Mitchell to do a little swimming and boating. I completely forgot how much I LOVE the water.


John and I have pretty much settled on the fact we want a lake house one day. We have a condo in the family and a camphouse/hunting camp, so we need a lake house! I picked out a cute little cottage, complete with picket fence on a little point. One day, one day!!!

I love weekends!

I'm setting out to be more of a free spirit this year. I'm going to try to do more with my friends and family, and not be so captured in this house between working a full time job, being a wife and running a business. It can be so challenging! The goal this year is to loosen up and remember what it was like back when I did things I enjoyed!

Last weekend was Easter weekend, so I was off Good Friday. Jennifer and Brooke invited me to go on an overnight trip to Birmingham to stay at the Hyatt with them - a good friend gave them a room for the night for free! We had fun! So nice to get out of the house! This makes TWICE in 3 weeks I have taken a GIRLS TRIP! First was to Memphis to see Rose and Sarah, and now this one to the 'Ham with Brooke and Jen!

Yummy fish tacos at Superior Grill - They were sooo good!

We went to the movies and saw Chloe. Not anything I would recommend seeing again. Quite strange and raunchy.

Then we made a midnight run to KRISPY KREME! I didn't grow up with a Krispy Kreme, so this was quite the treat!

Saturday morning we got up and did our Easter dress shopping, which was quite productive. I made it back to Tuscaloosa in time to see Libby Lou beat one of the local Hillcrest teams.

Pen and Millie Claire. Below is Dan and Ging!