friendship | Lessons from my daughter

Spring 2010

Out of nowhere, a colleague at work asked me if we had plans for Easter.

We didn’t have any.

The next sentence out of her mouth was going to be the trigger to an amazing friendship.

“Want to go to Arizona?”

“We would love that!”

Sometimes, you just have to do it! Just book flights and go to Arizona for Easter with another family.

Abby is only a year younger than Emily. Lorraine and I have worked in the same building for 4 years. She’s spunky and I like her but I don’t know her that much. I don’t know her husband…

We truly didn’t know if that would work!

We knew Emily was a good flyer.

I knew I wanted my family to see Arizona.

Here’s my girl at the Moncton airport…. Bright and early.

We ended-up stuck in Toronto for 1 night. Flying on stand-by has that kind of built-in excitement :).

You can get upset or you can go with the flow.

We decided to make a fun night out of it and booked 2 rooms on the gold floor at the Fairmont Royal York!

The girls and parents loved it.

We arrived in Arizona on the Saturday instead of the Friday.

We were all mesmerized by the cactus and quite hungry.

We were staying at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess.

I have to admit, this is one of my favorite place on this planet and I was so excited to have Jon and Emily there with me.

We changed into summer clothes and explored the property

My girl looked like a movie star

The next morning was all about the Easter rabbit, Easter egg hunt and Easter brunch.

We booked the whole Easter rabbit experience.

Special delivery! Best wake-up call ever!

Best Easter brunch ever! I have been day dreaming about this brunch.

Best brunch ever!!!

We even did this!!!

You’ve seen it before…. 🙂

We explored the grounds some more and booked a cabana by the pool for the whole day on Monday.

We had drinks, fruits, ice cream, shade, a tv and reserved seating poolside.

Best Easter ever!

My family discovered my favorite hotel and we all made new friends!!!

Best friends!

Emily started talking about going to see Cinderella during March break (first week of March).

As March 13th arrived, my daughter had decided that we were no longer going to watch the movie.

Why?

Who knows….?

I certainly don’t know and Emily didn’t give me any concrete reason why.

I blame this on her being a teenage girl. She just changes her mind because she can change her mind…

Early last week, I got a Facebook message from the mom of one of Emily’s baseball teammate.

Would Emily want to go see Cinderella with the girls?

My poor girl is so not used to being invited to outings that she never knows how to react. Yes…. No…. I don’t know!

So I said “yes of course, she would love too” and I took the conversation off line with her. Explaining how cool that would be.

By the time Saturday afternoon arrived, Emily was excited and off we went.

5 girls and their mom (and one dad… Emily’s dad of course).

The movie was great!

And for the second time ever, I wasn’t sitting next to my girl at the movie. I didn’t see her reactions, I was sitting behind her and had to wait till after the movie to see if she liked it.

She loved it!

She loved the Frozen short movie.

And on the way home she said… “Mom, you know…. Oh…. The alien? It’s Sheldon!!!!”