Friday Night Fun with Friends

On Thursday evening (yes, I realize the title of this post has to do with Friday, but just go with it) I received some heart-wrenching news regarding my brother. I'll let you take a guess as to what that might be. If you know me or have been reading this blog for any amount of time, then it shouldn't take too long to figure it out. I called my friend Nick who was leading our class Bible study that evening and asked him to please remember my brother and our family in prayer and later that evening the group said a special prayer on our behalf for which I am especially grateful. 

Fast forward to Friday - I woke up to a few different text messages from church friends letting me know they were praying for my family and Justin. then some time before lunch my friend Amanda sent me a text asking if she could take me to dinner. As is most always the case, I had no plans for that evening and agreed to meet her at 7:00 p.m. She and Leland, Haley and Holly were going to the safari park out in New Hope (yes, there is a such thing) and wanted to know if I could come with them for that as well. The timing didn't quite work out for me to meet them at the safari park. I needed to let The Tide out, etc. so I opted out of the drive thru safari but said I would see them all at dinner. 

I left work around 4:00 and as I pulled in the front of my house, Jackie pulled in at the exact same time. She had brought me a Gigi's cupcake because not much else cures sadness like heaps of sugar. As we walked up to the front door of my house, there was a vase of roses and carnations from another girl in my class at church, Amberly. Amberly actually lives a couple of blocks down the street from me and we share a birthday, as luck would have it. She left an extremely sweet card for me and said if I needed anything at all that she was right down the road. Her brother battles some of the same demons as Justin and so she can probably relate to how I am feeling at times. 

Gigi's Cupcake

Flowers from Amberly

Totally random note - there was a band bus parked next door when I got home. It has been quite a while since my neighbor had any bands stay the night at her house. Honestly, I have no idea how she even knows about these bands or how they end up staying at her house. I need to ask her about it because I'm curious to find out. The band was called April Mae and the June Bugs and they played at Lowe Mill on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. I did not make the show. This particular bus looked familiar, but I think it may just be the same color scheme as a previous bus. I tried to look back through the blog but couldn't find one like this. I do know that April Mae's bus runs on grease (like that restaurants dispose of) and I know another bus that stayed next door also ran on the same thing; so, maybe April Mae has stayed next door before, but you would think I would remember a name like April Mae and the June Bugs where it's "All About The Boogie"!

April Mae and The June Bugs - It's All About The Boogie!

Jackie hung out at the house for a few minutes and we chatted about all that was going on and also about our Saturday plans (more on that tomorrow) and then she headed home for the evening. I did some laundry and a little cleaning before leaving the house to meet the gang for dinner at Zoe's. 

It was really great to have some normalcy and a diversion to take my mind of of things and I am super grateful to my friends for going to dinner with me. I had the salad and hummus plate which is seriously one of my favorite things ever. We had a fun evening talking about nothing in particular. Leland, being the only boy, was either grateful for the insight into the thought process of women or he wanted to run for the hills. Actually he was a trooper and I think he enjoyed the girl time.

After dinner, we all headed over to Amberly's house and saw on the news that the second Boston Marathon bomber had been captured. We watched the news and had more girl talk and then Amberly whipped up some chocolate fondue. We had strawberries, rice kripsy treats, brownies, bananas, graham crackers and pretzels to dip in the chocolate and it was super yummy! I stayed at Amberly's until about 9:15 or so and then went on home. I was tired and had to be up early the next morning so I wanted to wind down from the evening and go on to bed. 

It was a really fun and relaxing evening and really lifted my spirits and I will always be grateful for these wonderful friends that God put in my life.