Do you and your best friends all live hundreds (or even thousands) of miles apart? Well, my best friends and I do! We all met freshman year of college at UNC (it’s hard to believe that was ten years ago in the Fall of 2005!), and we’ve been best friends since. Now that we’re a few years after graduating, we are spread out all of the world, literally. Reunions are few and far between, but boy they sure are sweet! We tend to all get together again for weddings (six are married now) and the preceding bridal showers and bachelorette weekends. We don’t have a wedding amongst us this year, though! And one of the last times we were together was two years ago for this top-moments-of-my-life surprise!

Our friend Jenny is pregnant and is due with her baby girl in a few weeks! While we couldn’t all journey to Tennessee, as much as we all want to, for a baby shower, we threw her the next best thing: a surprise, international, virtual baby shower! Using Google hangout (thank you, technology!), together we were able to more properly celebrate the impending arrival of her bundle of joy! We had her husband reserve the time (2:00pm on a Sunday, planned months in advance!) and he hid the presents and card that we shipped her way. We all joined the Google hangout right on time (we had a trial run earlier in the week!), and Jenny popped in at 2:05 to her surprise – seeing so many of her best friends in one place!

Though we were in seven states, four time zones, and one in London (the one in Argentina couldn’t make it, sadly!), we made it happen. And it was amazing!! Seriously, we all couldn’t believe it had taken us 5+ years to do this together. We had so much fun taking a virtual tour of the baby’s nursery, having Jenny open her gifts from us, seeing her adorable baby bump, and generally catching up and laughing for quite some time. I am so, so thankful for these beautiful, generous, loving friends and the abundant joy they have long brought into my life. What a blessing they have been (and always will be!). Even if we’re thousands of miles apart, there’s nothing like a Google hangout to make you think you’re curled up on the couch together talking about life like you used to!