Lunch with Aimee and Carrie

Today I enjoyed a lunch with Aimee B. and Carrie C. and their kids. I see Carrie on a pretty regular basis since she lives pretty close, but Aimee moved out of our ward a few years ago and we try to get together when things aren't too crazy. Aimee and I moved here at the same time and became friends through church. It was fun to realize we were married on the same day (Dec. 16 2000) in the same temple (Bountiful Utah Temple), just a few hours apart!

Five years ago, Aimee had a little baby named Billy and I was nannying for baby Drew, who was about 6 months younger. We started doing a playgroup with our Australian friend Abbey and her little boy Jacob (she now has three kids and the family is back in Australia), and now years later, it's turned into a thriving (most of the time) ward playgroup with an email list of 40+ moms/nannies. We meet weekly, taking turns at different homes during the cold months and meeting at different parks in the warmer months.

Here is a picture from the playgroup about a year after I first met Aimee and Abbey, when Carrie and a few others had moved into the ward. Aimee was nannying at the time, so she has a little girl on her lap too. Here we are in 2004 at the Chicago Botanic Gardens - Aimee, Carrie, me, Debora G., Meta V., and Abbey:

And here we are today - Aimee now has three kids, Billy, Fiona, and Kortney, and Carrie has two kids, Alex and Sam, and is expecting her third next month!