Play Date w/ Luke!

One of the perks of living in Chicago is that I am now within 45 mins (by train...30 by car) to one of my best friends/Matron of Honor, Lauren Johnson! Her and her husband, Jason, had been living in Washington for the last few years so we were both ECSTATIC when we found out we would be reunited in Illinois! I missed out on being there for one of their most exciting milestones as a family...having a BABY!!! but I love trying to make up for it by taking little day trips to spend time with them! She is blessed to stay home with their little man, Luke Brandon. He's such a great little guy and recently turned ONE!

Lauren is one of the most genuine and down to earth girls in my life. She is always kind, gracious and encouraging. I still can't believe it took us 20 years to "fall in love" as we like to say!

We're both from Wichita Falls, but went to different high schools and had different social circles (she was in the cool crowd! haha!). We both went to Oklahoma State and ended up in the same sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. Lauren was always a girly girl. She's got a great sense of style and makes everything look so cute, even a baseball hat. ugh. :) I was always the "athletic one", I would rather wear tshirts and be super casual and it wasn't until later in high school/early college that I even really enjoyed wearing skirts and such. I know. WEIRD! Now, I would rather wear a sun dress than shorts and love me a cute pair of skinny jeans! who knew?!? :) Lauren usually takes credit for this b/c she helped me kind of find my style. I remember being in the Theta house and she would help me fix my hair and pick out cute clothes. She also introduced me to "the clutch". My HOBO wallet/clutch combo that is my life and I still carry in my big purse! But even beyond all of that, we get each other. We can talk for hours about any/every thing and sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's just non sense. She's just wonderful! We can really just be ourselves and it's so refreshing!!! So anywhoo...that's a little background on our friendship!


So Thursday I hopped on the Metra to spend the day with Lauren and Luke! We went to lunch, shopped a little and just spent time together!


I was also honored that Lauren and Jason asked me to watch Luke so they could go on a date! Luke is such an easy baby, but I know that Lauren and Jason don't get much alone time since family is in Texas and they don't know anyone well enough here in IL to just leave their child with...so Aunt Beth was MORE than glad to play with Luke! Lauren got all gussied up since she didn't have to worry about any slobber or sticky hands lovingly touching her dry-clean-only blouse and wore some fun dang-ly earrings that would be oh so fun for a child on the hip to pull and yank! We had a great time! We played with ALL of his toys, watched Yo Gabba Gabba (w.o.w), and ate grilled cheese and the time just flew by!

We didn't even have to tickle him to make him grin and laugh! He's just so much fun right now! I tried to teach him "Go Pokes"...we'll get there!

I hope we can have another play date soon!!!