"I thank my God in every remembrance of you.."

I have the greatest friends.The day I had returned home from vacation was filled with a fun baby shower for Shannon. Gretchen, Chelsea, and I hauled the presents in from the car, then Gretchen and Chelsea suggested we go upstairs. So up we went, and when we walked into the living room, I heard some music. "...Is that the Lion King playing?" I asked, somewhat confused. "Just sit!", I was instructed by Gret, and Chelsea went to her room. She returned with a huge smile on her face and this ridiculous-looking bead thing; at first I had no idea what the heck it was! I then realized it looked like a hat, and it all came together...the girls had made me a homemade headdress, and were using the Lion King soundtrack to present it. I started cracking up! As they handed me the headdress,I looking at all the drawings of tigers, elephants, etc., along with notes such as "The animals can't wait for you to come!" There was also a drawing of an African tribal man named Tomas, which brought a whole new wave of laughter out, along with a whistle attached so I can summon Tomas when I arrive. (For those of you who have not heard the story of "Tomas", that is a whole other funny blog post! In short, there is a running joke among my friends and now family about them being afraid of me meeting some African tribal man, "Tomas" and forgetting all about everyone I love back home and marrying him! Very silly!)

At the top of the headdress, the girls had glued colored popsicle sticks, and at a second glance I noticed there was writing on them. The first one said: "Gretchen loves you." The second one said "Chelsea loves you." The third one, "Gretchen misses you.", and the fourth, "Chelsea misses you." And so on and so forth, around the hat they went.

Admist "I just can't wait to be King" playing and all of us laughing, tears came to my eyes. I was really touched by this silly, creative craft my friends made to show me how they were rejoicing with me and were excited for me. It was a moment where I was keenly aware of what two blessings these girls are to me. The moment passed quickly as I was told eagerly to put it on, and we danced down the stairs to "Hakuna Matata" (Chelsea carried the laptop down) to display my headdress for Shannon and Seth.

I am so blessed to have such beautiful, Godly, funny women as such close friends. Friends who are for me and rejoice when I rejoice are such a reason to be thankful. I hope I can be even half the friend to them that they are to me. It's true that every good gift is from God, and I am surrounded by such an amazing and supportive community of friends and family! Ok, enough with the mushy gushy stuff. :) Thank you Chelsea and Gretchen for my ROCKIN headdress! :)



The making of my headdress one night while I was still on vacation-- they are so funny!

















The drawing of Tomas! Be still my beating heart...... :p


The presenting of the headdress..as you can tell, there was a lot of laughter!
Dancing around to Lion King and blowing the Tomas whistle!
Downstairs showing Seth and Shannon what the laughter was about!