this past weekend, 3 college friends and layne and i all drove up to raleigh, nc, to surprise one of our dear friends, sarah. she had a baby two months ago and will be moving to south africa at the end of the summer for probably 5 years. we weren’t sure when we’d see her again and we were all anxious to meet little kieren, so we decided to go for it and drive up. after we made the plans, we decided it’d be cool to make it a surprise. we got sarah’s husband to help us plan and it worked out perfectly! for the full story of the surprise (and from her viewpoint), visit her blog.

Wednesday (6/11): drove to Gainesville (my sister’s), got there 2 hours after i’d planned to
Thursday (6/12): drove to Tallahassee (my parents’) with 3 girls in tow (Layne, Harper, and Hannah – my niece) to borrow thier car and drop off the two older girls
Friday (6/13): layne & i left at 6:30 am for Jacksonville, picked up 3 friends, drove to Raleigh (amy drove THE WHOLE WAY!). arrived in Raleigh around 6:30 pm for probably the best surprise i’ve ever pulled off in my life

Saturday (6/14): spent most of the day on the couch surrounded by good friends, food, laptops, and two very cute babies (one was mine – layne, and the other was kieren – sarah’s adorable two month old)

Sunday (6/15): attended casey and sarah’s church, followed by more laying around and movie watching

Monday (6/16): packed up and left sarah’s at 7:00 am,  drove to jacksonville (shanel drove THE WHOLE WAY…6 months pregnant!), dropped 2 friends off (amy had flown home from raleigh), drove to my parents’

Tuesday (6/17): left tallahassee at 8:30 am, drove to gainesville to drop off hannah and take a break, drove to orlando for a short visit with my in-laws and some extended family, then finally drove HOME – arrived 6:30 pm

WHEW.  right now i’m still in my pajamas and greasy hair.  trying to unpack, catch up on cleaning and laundry, and just recover from a whirlwind trip.  i’m a dork and made this map to diagram my trip.  i’ll post pictures from the trip later (maybe after i brush my teeth).