"Anyone who's anyone brings their own."

After a great Thanksgiving with my family I arrived back in Indy to spend some time with some of my favorite people. I'm thankful for stretches of days like this when people just want to connect and catch up and spend real time together.

Sar and I reunited and carpooled (we really love carpooling together) to hang out with Dom, Allison, Taylor and Susan. Now sophomores in college, they are growing up and figuring out who they are through Young Life, new groups of friends, boyfriends, sororities or lack of sororities, worship nights, real community, intentional faith, changes in majors, and realizations about themselves.

And even though they're growing up, they're still exactly the same in so many ways. During times like this I feel like they've never even gone away.

The rest of the night was spent with Sarah and MaryEllen. 

I really don't even know how to explain how much fun we had.... Nope, can't do it.

We laughed till we cried, painted nails, got smoothies, sang Jake Ousley songs in the car, did Sar's hair, read Cold Tangerines aloud, had boy talk, ate popcorn, took Photobooth pictures... at about 12 we realized we were having the epitome of a girl slumber party. Minus the pillow fight.

Best friends like this are hard to come by.

This morning was the most fun I've ever had before 11:00 church. We awoke early to Sar showing us her beautiful, curly hair. Then Sar and I got to go meet Jake and Heather for breakfast at Petite Chou. They are one powerhouse brother-sister duo. After talking for over an hour Jake exclaimed, "We should have met at 8! There's so much to talk about!" Next Sar and I met up with Steph to talk some more about life and Thanksgiving break and how Carmel dominated the State game last night and family and Young Life.

It's been a couple Sundays since I've sat in the rows of Common Ground and it was so good to be back. I love that we were surrounded by Marlin & Joel, MaryEllen, Rachel & Colleen, and David was right behind us. I love singing these songs and hymns together. I love when I hear truths that apply to my life.

David, Sar, MaryEllen and I went to lunch together because we weren't ready for Sar to leave just yet. We tried out Good Morning Momma's and it was delicious.

But I mean, what meal could possibly be bad when you're in a room painted the color of sunshine, surrounded by great friends, and you have a Diet Coke?

This afternoon I got to sit in my room and just talk with Taylor Porter. Perfection. This semester we have strangely stayed connected primarily through voice mails-- really long, multi-message voice mails. I don't know why we can never catch anymore. But thankfully we both just keep calling and leaving messages and making sure we stay friends that know what's going on in each other's lives.

I loved having time to just sit and talk and listen to long stories without having any distractions. Taylor is just so great and a constant source of inspiration and raw truth and joy.

We started skyping Mags when Molly came over so she could meet both of them and it was one of the best/most hilarious Skype conversations ever. It's so fun for me to see how Taylor thinks Molls and Mags are so great and they love her too.

Molls and I made a trip to the grocery store where I got overly excited about juice and we picked cinnamon rolls for the Chick Flick Sunday dessert.

Annie Skyped in right after the movie started and we had to pause The Holiday (my personal favorite) to see her in one of those really-excited-to-be-talking-to-you-and-kind-of-squealing-because-i-love-you-so-much-and-wish-i-were-there-with-you kind of moods. We can't wait to play with her all next weekend.

Rachie joined us for the rest of the chick flick, we love when she comes over, and we realized that we all really want to be Kate Winslet for awhile and be a girl who has gumption.

Such a great Thanksgiving break of overlapping with awesome people. There are only a few weeks left until Christmas and I'm going to take on Kelle Hampton's attitude that she articulated so well this weekend, "If companies struggle all year to break even and Black Friday finally flips the switch to gaining profit, then perhaps I should, likewise, focus on the rest of the year as pure gain. I'm going to enjoy it... Today I felt grateful--reminded that, no matter how busy we are, what matters most is this. The opportunity to connect. And whether your life right now is really challenging, really great or somewhere in between, everyone has the opportunity to connect. So from here on out, it's all profit."