We often send group text messages between me, Jeff, Ben and Natalie. I remember one evening Natalie suggesting that I come to visit her for a “Happy Mommy Box” meeting. I’m sure the guys reply was something along the lines of, “We’d love to be on kid duty while you ladies do girl things and eat ice cream!”

Orrrrr not. Haha. They are actually very supportive and Ben was the one who booked my ticket before I could even say yes. So I can’t even pretend to knock them.

As most of you know, Natalie has been sick for the last few weeks and I’ve been dying to get to her so I could give her a big GIANT hug. She was doing so well when I got there. It was great to see the happy, energetic Natalie that I know rather than the sad one I kept seeing in pictures. I can’t tell you how happy it made me to see her healing!

She still had to take it easy and be careful not to overdo it while I was there… which was difficult since we REALLY wanted to have a dance-off on our Target trip. I’m certain that if Natalie’s mom would have been with us we would have been grounded. And forbidden to take Natalie in public again until she was off doctor orders to rest. Oops!

Carrie from Caroline G Shop drove in and stayed the night with us on Friday night. We didn’t end up sleeping in the double bed together, but pretty sure we stayed awake talking a good portion of the night. We have met a few times before, but we’ve never had the chance to spend that much time together… it was lovely.

On Saturday we had a girls lunch at Mellow Mushroom that Natalie planned with local Charlotte bloggers! Natalie is the queen of event planning by the way. She can just pull together a meet-up like she’s a professional. I was slightly nervous because I had never met any of the girls attending in person. You know, you never want it to be awkward.

But these ladies made it far from awkward. I had the chance to really get to know so wonderful women. And I love that Natalie has some instant friends since she just moved to that area.

Rachel brought her little guy, Charlie. He honestly stole my heart. He sat right across from me so of course I had to snap pics of his adorable dimples. It made me miss my babies less to be able to stare at hers. Haha.

She was the sweetest and we shared stories on adoption and our hearts for Jesus. It was just what I needed, especially since we haven’t heard anything about our adoption. It uplifted me to be able to connect with another mom who has a heart for it too!

Side Note: *Pretty certain this little guy above was plugging his ears and eyeing me to be quiet.*

The Meet & Greet crew: Rachel, Steph, Gena, Stacy, Rachel, Lexi, Erica, Valerie, and Carrie

I had the pleasure of meeting and staying with Natalie’s family. You may know her sister Val… she owns Blanqi (so if you’ve ever been pregnant…you know her). And if you are currently pregnant and don’t know her? Check out her line of products. Seriously.

Her family was THE BEST. And I do mean THE BEST. Sometimes you meet a friend & a family that you feel like you’ve known your entire life. It’s like you say hello & you feel like you’ve said hello a million times before.  They not only made me feel welcome… They made me feel like I belong. I’m grateful that God places people like them in my path.

My kids were rather jealous though that I was hanging out with Natalie’s kids. In fact, I Facetimed with P Man and he cried. Like all out balled his eyes out because he couldn’t play with Sophia, Sienna and Micah. So the next time we have a Happy Mommy Box meeting I’ll have to bring the kids or lie to them and tell them I’m going to China.

Sunday we got invited to Rachel’s church. Rachel is the author of Kincaid Parade and her husband is the worship leader at their church. He was a total rockstar. I loved attending because it was so similar to my church here. I felt right at home! After church we met one of my long time blog friends Nina and her little boy Will. Nina and I have NEVER met, but we’ve been following each other for years and years.

She’s adorable. As well as Will. I can now finally say we are real life friends and not just online friends. 😉

Val’s daughter and Micah are similar in age and the entire weekend was hilarious to watch them together. All Violet wanted to do was kiss Micah and all Micah wanted to do was RUN.

Meanwhile, back home, my husband was out of kale and spinach. Sooooo…like any normal father of 3 boys he braved the grocery store alone. Pretty sure these two were bowling with the lettuce at some point. Glad I missed that.

I told Jeff he should never attempt the grocery store unless he’s out of chocolate. Kale and spinach is not urgent.

One of the best parts about the trip {besides the fact that I had Coldstone Creamery on nearly 3 occasions in 3 days} was that Natalie and I had the chance to cast more vision for Happy Mommy Box. We both agreed that if we could just work in the same state… things would get crazy accomplished.

We worked from Starbucks, which was pretty much a dream since I can’t really do that at home since our Starbucks is in Target. I’m sure I don’t need to explain why working from a Starbucks in Target would be counter productive, right?

But our brains on espresso? Whoa. Watch out world. Bahahahahah.

I even got initiated into the HMB box club. Meaning that I got to help box 450 boxes. Let me just tell you ladies…. I praise Natalie and all the girls who do this part every month. It’s such hard work and they do it with such huge hearts. I must say that there was something about it that felt joyful. Just knowing what the boxes were being put together for made it all worth it.

We have so many new ideas for Happy Mommy Box that we can’t wait to implement. Natalie has been such a blessing in my life and I am beyond thankful that I took the chance to attend a blog conference in Dallas where I met her. You just never know what can come of things when you go out of your comfort zone. Never in a million years did I think that meeting her there in Texas would lead to such an amazing friendship and fun business.

If there is something that you’ve been wanting to do… whether it’s going to a blog conference, or meeting new friends at church, or calling up someone you haven’t seen in awhile for a lunch date… DO IT.  I promise you that if it’s on your heart and you take the leap, you will only be happier.