Easter Weekend!

Its been a while since I've updated so I hope this doesn't end up too long. For Easter we went back to our hometown of Arlington, Texas. The drive takes on average 4.5 hours. We have learned to have fun on the road and now we hardly notice that we have been driving so long. Although some silly things do happen.

Here's Riley sporting Daddy's work gear.

I am always personally excited for Easter because its a holiday all of my friends pick to come home. Since we grew up together going to the same church, we always end up at Hillcrest on Sunday morning(plus or minus a few). It's always fun to go home anyway. Since we've moved 3 times in the past year we haven't seen our good friends as often as we are used to. AJ and I have been blessed to have kept the same friends the majority of our lives. Most of our friends we've been close with for 15+ years. So often times when we go home, AJ and I will split up and spend time with our own friends.

On Thursday evening I was thrilled to get to see my high school friends Cassondra and Libby. We got together for dinner and drinks. We had a great time talking about what we've been up to and remembering silly things we used to do. I spent almost everyday of my senior year with these girls and it was so wonderful to go back in time with them. Just reminded me why I loved them in the first place. There will be more nights like this to come.

On Friday evening we got some girls together for a night out in Downtown Fort Worth. One of my dearest friends, Falisha, and I decided to head Downtown early for good parking and to walk around. I have been telling Falisha about Simply Fondue(I love this restaurant) for a few years now and we have joked about going on a date there. So I thought we would go since we had time to kill.

This is Falisha and I later that evening.

The Simply Fondue downtown is in a basement, fancy but not swanky, definitely my favorite Simply Fondue location. Since we share a love of cheese I knew Falisha would love it. We had a super yummy dinner and still had a little time to kill. So as we left the restaurant we walked through an art gallery. We joked about how it would have made for a good date. Then we walked a few blocks to meet our friends at Lonestar(formerly City Streets). Since another one of my dearest friends Kathryn is getting married we took her out for her traditional "Last Night Out" as a bachelorette.

Here's the bachlorette being serenaded at the dueling piano bar inside Lonestar.

You can't really see in this picture but they had a leopard print piano and a zebra print piano.

We also had some really good laughs at the Karaoke Bar inside Lonestar. ("We ain't ghetto no mo'!" "White people put yo hands up!") Le Freak was also playing at Lonestar, and if you've ever seen Le Freak you know how much fun we had. We ended the night at Pete's Piano Bar. Here we all are:

(L to R: Kathryn, Elayna, Brittany, Myself, and Falisha)

Easter Sunday, the main event! I realize most people try to dress their family in their Sunday best on this holiday. I usually take it a step further to coordinate my family. Just to show you a little peek of something certain people refer to as OCD or neurotic....here is my merchandising studies at work....I put together this template to show my mom the dress I wanted to find for Tatum and the reason I wanted it. Enjoy. Ha ha.

OK back to Easter Sunday...We woke up for church and my mom snapped some traditional "pose outside in the driveway" pictures.  I have more than a few pictures of my brothers, my sister, my nieces, and myself posing in this same driveway on Easter morning. So I am excited that my children will have some of them also.

Don't let the faces fool you! I'm kidding. They are usually pretty sweet.

The Gardner's, Easter 2011

After church service, the kids hunted Easter eggs. They were running around so fast that there are not many pictures of them hunting eggs.

Tatum found some!

Dad was the official bucket holder.

Riley admiring all his eggs....mainly thinking of all the CANDY inside.

Riley and his buddy Donovan were born exactly one month and one day apart. Donovan's mom happens to be Kathryn(mentioned before). They are best buddies and their mommies are best buddies. Here is the typical "buddy shot" of the two of them.

Here is Rinoa, my great-niece, that means she's my niece's daughter.

Rinoa came back to Oklahoma with us and will be living with us for a while.

After a long and busy weekend like that one, we are happy to have had a nice relaxing weekend back at home.

I do realize this was a lot of information to process. I hope I remembered to mention everything! It's May now...oh my! Have a blessed, happy, and hopefully sunny MAY!

-Amber-