Monday, January 11, 2016

birthday in georgia

y'all, today was one of the hardest goodbye's for me to do. i am so grateful i got to spend the past few days with my best friend christina and her sweet little family. in december she had a baby and i got to spend the past weekend cuddling her and helping them out however i could. i loved getting to love on sweet baby thea, and miss her so much already.



christina and i have been best friends since we met in 2000, aka 5th grade. no way i could have asked for a better friend than her. she has put up with a lot of my craziness, and it wasn't always a good crazy, and has loved me through it all. i couldn't imagine my life without her, and it's crazy for me to think about how she's been married for a year and a half(ish) and now has a one month old baby. i can't believe it!  we used to get to spend every birthday together, and then she had to go and join the marines, so that hasn't been able to happen lately. we actually hadn't seen each other in like 4 years before this weekend. it was hard on me to not see her at all during her pregnancy, and they had a courthouse wedding so basically no one got to go down for that. but i knew, even before she told me she was pregnant, that i wanted to spend my birthday with her again. it had been way too long! so in the summer i bought tickets to georgia and spend time with her. such a great decision.

i flew down the day before my birthday, and i'm pretty sure delta was going to try to keep me in atlanta forever. the countdown to see christina was unbearable, and even worse in atlanta when i was so close, yet still so far. i was so excited to give her a huge hug and finally meet thea. i've called her my niece the whole pregnancy, and christina also asked me to be her godmother, so i'm sure you can imagine how excited i was to hold her. we stopped by petco and saw her husband on the way to the house. (i feel like i can't emphasize enough how much i have missed these people.) i couldn't wait to get to the house and hold thea for hours on end (except for feeding time) and give them everything i had bought for her and the blanket my mom made for her. (alice blankets are kind of a must have among family and best friends here)


the next day was MY BIRTHDAY!!! if you don't know me, i'm kind of obnoxious when it's my birthday. (birthday buddies include elvis presley, stephen hawking, and david bowie) christina and i had a lazy morning of cuddling my baby girl and just hanging out while chris and his dad were at work. i told christina long before hand that i was wanting to get a new tattoo while i was down there. so we spent the afternoon at the tattoo shop and they were fantastic. extremely nice people and john drew up a great design and it turned out better than i imagined. if you are ever in the evans/grovetown/augusta area and looking for a tattoo, i recommend going there. every year since i was 14 i have been going to applebee's for my birthday. christina and chris indulged me, so we went there for dinner, and thankfully thea slept through the whole thing. she had spent a lot of time out of the house and she was getting tired and cranky right before then. i can't really blame her though. 

i wanted an anchor for multiple reasons. mostly for my grandpa who was in the navy and is my hero. (him and dad are the two people i am most scared of disappointing) i got my last name on it because no matter what happens in my life, i will always be a holland.

saturday christina, thea, and i explored the mall while daddy worked. (also, if you live in that area and need a dog trainer, chris is your man) that afternoon, all the georgians let me watch the chiefs game, and shared in my joy when they won. chris's dad made homemade ricotta cheese and stuffed shells for dinner, it was delicious. he was also super sweet and bought me a little birthday cake along with birthday cake flavored ice cream for dessert, complete with a candle and singing the birthday song to me as well. definitely made this girl feel special and loved. we ended the night with playing cards against humanity. so much fun!

sunday was another great day. my old small group leader and her family live just a few minutes away from chris and christina, and i was so fortunate to get to go to church with them sunday morning, and finally meet her son, who is a year and a half old. i am so glad i was able to still go to church, and spend quality time with them. they moved to georgia for her husband's residency, and we are hoping they come back to kansas city for the 4 years after that. their family is from mid-missouri, so they want to be back closer to home. and i just want them back in kansas city. we got lunch after church and enjoyed getting to catch up with them a bit more. it made my heart so happy to see them as well. after they dropped me off back at the house, we pretty much just hung out the rest of the day. sunday was also thea's official one month birthday, so we got to take some pictures for that. they didn't turn out quite as good as i had hoped, but i am so glad i got to do that for them. 

thea and daddy. she wasn't having it the first time around


i love these two with mommy holding her hand, and daddy holding her. too bad she still wasn't happy

mommy cuddles


sometimes you just need grandpa

on the blanket my mommy made for her

today was the hard day. started with thea's one month check up, then grabbing lunch with daddy. after lunch we made the quick journey into south carolina for me to meet their friend kala. i was excited to meet her. goodbye time came way too fast. it was crazy hard to say goodbye to christina, which doesn't surprise me at all. she's been the closest thing to a sister i have ever had, and the weekend together just wasn't enough. when i landed in atlanta, i was sitting in my seat trying not to bawl, and as i type this now, i'm trying not to bawl. and i am sure when i get to kc, i'll stop trying and give in to the tears. saying goodbye to her is almost as hard as saying goodbye to ethan and his family. both are crazy hard for me. it was one of the best birthday weekends i could have asked for, and i am already trying to plan my next trip down here. 





No comments: