"is that a fire alarm?"

Picture it:

6:40 a.m.
Dark hotel room
4 moms, sleeping peacefully.


ARRRRRNNN ARRRRRRNN ARRRRRRRNN (fire alarm)

FLASH ---- FLASH ---- FLASH (strobe light)

4 women, completely disoriented. banging into each other. crammed in the closet looking for coats, phones, wallets (passports). still banging into each other. can't find their way out of the suite.

SILENCE. DARKNESS.

WHAT THE ______ WAS THAT?

And then the adrenalin arrived.

6:41 a.m.

4 moms
wide awake
shaking and rattled

My first thought?
This is a weekend for four women without their children. This means we could SLEEP IN. But oh no, instead of cute little kid faces waking us up, we have a FIRE ALARM? HELLO?

Jeepers.


______________________________

But, we are still having such an AMAZING time. Always do have a good time with these girls. And we have the most amazing suite. It's basically a two bedroom apartment. Fabulous. How lucky am I to have these three woman in my life?


oh, and Allison pointed out my speech path math:
there are EIGHT children between us, not nine. oopsy doodle.

20 years later

Tomorrow I'm driving down to Minot to spend the weekend with my three friends from University. The four of us have been friends for 20 years. True story.

Allison did a little math last night and I'll share it with you:

20 years =
80 birthdays
9 children
4 weddings (4 husbands!)
8 degrees
3 provinces
2 states
4 countries (We can thank Randa for two of those)
10 -12 girls weekends (?)

This will be the first weekend in 9 (NINE) years that someone wasn't pregnant or had a new baby. Good news and bad news. Bad news b/c we are 9 years older and REALLY not 20 anymore... Good news b/c we might all get the same amount of sleep this year.

I'm pretty sure it's been 10 years since I last went to Minot. So strange for a city I lived in for close to 6 years. I'm sure a lot has changed, but according to the interweb, a lot has stayed the same.

Our current agenda includes (but is not limited to)
1. The Barley Pop
2. The Blue Rider
3. MSU Bookstore (lined sweats, anyone?)
4. The Mall
5. Drinks with Val (she lives in Minot)
6. Schatzes (the truck stop)
7. 10 North Main (Josh Duhmel's restaurant. You might know him as a famous actor and Fergie's husband. We know him as that guy from Biology class....mmm hmmm.) *Disclaimer: JD may not actually remember ME as that girl from Bio. He was cooler than me even then.

Things I wish we could do:
1. Go to Cats and dance to Spirit of the West and The Hip
2. Go to Payton Place
3. Be 20 for one more weekend.

Wish I had an old classic photo to post on here. But I don't. Instead, imagine some pleated khakis, a club monaco sweatshirt, maybe a scrunchie bun, some wool socks in hikers, a fleece jacket, some Very Bushy eyebrows, maybe a plaid shirt tied around the waist. Multiply that by 4. There you have us.

SQUEEEEEEEE!

Uh oh

So on Saturday Jason was standing in our front step, locking the door when the step gave way. He was pretty much "James Bonded" (his words) himself into the nearby snowbank.

Left a BIG hole.

Mr & Little Miss Fixit

So here is the temporary repair job.  It's still basically winter here, so we (i.e., Jason) can't do anything too permanent until this $#*% snow is gone.

The hole doesn't look as big in these pictures, that's b/c Jason filled it in with all the crap that fell off the step.  I'm not good with math (shocking) so I'm guessing the hole was about as deep as Maddie?  2 feet? 3 feet?  Maybe deeper?