I have read countless articles about the importance of friendships as you get older. I find now that I am settled in my career and have a family, it can be a lot harder to find time to cultivate those friendships. Between my job and family, my spare time is pretty rare. Plus being an introvert, I need my own downtime which I am pretty selfish about. I wrote about it here why this very thing is so darn difficult.

Even more so when your best friends do not live near you, which is the case for me.

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of the three of us, circa 2006.

So in an effort to try to be better at being intentional about my own personal relationships, I reached out to two of my favorite people on Earth and suggested that we make a plan to get together for a weekend every year, just us. One for sure weekend out of 52 sounds manageable right?

Jeannette and Annette both live in KC, and it use to be easy to visit them when I went home to my parents. However, we hardly ever stay in KC for more than one night anymore because George is the worst travel companion, and we only live 2 hours away. This makes it more difficult to squeeze in time with them though since my time is already split between grandparents and parents.

Enter Ladies’ Weekend.

We all have significant others, and two of us have kids, but this weekend we left all of them to their own devices. We were just the three of us again like most of our college days.

We hung out, stayed up way past my bedtime (but I didn’t fall asleep on the couch-which is a win), ate way too much food, and did some touristy things in KC that we had not done before. We played Heads Up for hours, and I haven’t laughed like that in a long time. We acted like kids while playing arcade basketball games, but also were full on adult when we made ourselves a fancy breakfast from scratch.

Our weekend revolved a lot around basketball. The NCAA tournament was winding down, so we watched a lot of great games. We also toured the College Basketball Experience, which is in downtown Kansas City. This was so much fun! I definitely want to go again but with my dad, who actually played basketball in college. He is also the reason I got into the sport in elementary school, and proceeded to cheer/coach me until high school.

There were shooting games (free-throw, three point, and dunking at various heights), a passing game (this was my favorite), and a video game similar to guitar hero but you were judged on your dribbling skills. There were several courts as well where pick up games were happening with elementary school kids up to adults. We didn’t get any video of our game playing. I learned that I cannot do a free throw pregnant, but I can still slam it down on pop a shot.

They also have lots of interactive areas where you can compare yourself to college players. There is also several areas that were museum like with hall of fame information and a lot about coaches in the NCAA.

Our wingspan was not up to par with the collegiate player.

As someone who grew up watching college basketball with my dad and where pick up games were one of our favorite past-times as kids, this place was really awesome.

I hope that they continue to develop this experience and add more about the female aspect of the game. There were no displays on women’s basketball. It was still cool, but I think there is a lot of potential there to hit another audience.

We may have to go again once George is older because he is obsessed.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BShag0lAfBb/?taken-by=emilywhitenerroberts

We also rode the street car, which was a first for all of us. Public transport is not the greatest in KC, so it was nice to see they are making an effort. We also went through the City Market, which is always a highlight for me. We walked around Crown Center leisurely, and we all satisfied our taste buds with chocolate or my personal hometown favorite of Topsy’s popcorn.

We attempted to eat in the Jazz district, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us that night. Apparently things close down or we weren’t wearing the correct “upscale” attire to even enter in. We ended up at a dive bar claiming to have the best burgers in KC. They were good, but “best” was debatable.

As a mom, I do not get much time with friends period, but definitely get very limited time without a kid in tow. So this was so nice to just be with Annette and Jeannette without our kids or significant others. Even though we probably talked about them for most of the weekend.

I think as a mom, things like this have to be a priority at times. Some may think it as selfish as a parent to want that time away but I think our bodies/souls need it mentally and physically at times so we can be the best spouse/parent/friend that we can be. It was nice to invest quality time into these relationships, but it was also nice to be away from home for a little while.

I don’t see it as running away from my responsibilities, but as a way for me to make sure my responsibilities don’t run over me.

I also appreciate a partner who also saw the value in me spending time with my ladies, and happily had a boys’ weekend with George so I could get away. Tom knows that I don’t get a lot of me time and encouraged me to go especially since our world is going to get a little more hectic here with DC’s arrival soon. (He also cleaned the house before I got home too. He’s a keeper!)

So the first year was a giant success. I already can’t wait to see what will be in the works in the years to come.

How do you make your friendships a priority? Do you have friends only trips?