Several months ago, Jessica emailed me and asked if I thought I might be interested in resurrecting the Mom Walks I had started the previous summer.  We’d only had a small group of regulars back then, but it was a great outlet for us to get in a bit of exercise and gab for an hour as we walked around Spring Lake.  Sometimes we even brought our kids, teens and tweens who would either walk with us or ride their bikes a little ways ahead.

The 2011 walk group

I was more than excited about starting this again.  It was my hopes that more moms would join in, taking advantage of the good summery weather for a quick weekly meet up.  Of course, we proved to be a bit unlucky in garnering popularity with this Friday event, as most weeks it was just the two of us.  Occasionally one of the other moms from the forums, Amy, came with her baby daughter in a stroller to bravely challenge the hills.  But mostly it was just Jessica and me.

Btw, yes that is us in the above picture, totally Hollywood in our shades giving free advertising to Sonoma Academy and Girl Scouts.  Don’t hate us cuz we’re sweaty beautiful.

The topics of conversation held no bounds, as we discussed our growing teenagers, active 11 year olds, relationships, and even stuff that had nothing to do with our families.  It became my favorite part of the week, taking a little part of the morning at the end of the week for social hour.  At 3.7 miles from the Howarth Park parking lot and back, we were able to pace it at just under an hour.  And through the weeks, we went from acquaintances who knew each other online to true friends.

Now that the school year is coming upon us, our final Mom Walk was today.  It was just Jessica and me, as usual, and we took to the path we’ve grown accustomed to over the weeks.  Starting next week I’ll be diving headfirst into the final two months of wedding planning, as well as everything that goes with the upcoming school year and soccer season – meaning the Santa Rosa Mom Walks will be on hiatus until next summer.  However, Jessica has expressed interest in continuing them if any moms want to join her.  She can be reached through SantaRosaMom.com by clicking here and sending her a private message.

The one thing I took away from this experience was the importance of connecting offline.  Too often it’s easy to segregate socializing to just online because it’s convenient and takes very little effort.  I don’t know about you, but I often crave face time with friends when I haven’t seen them in awhile.  Over the next two months, I am admittedly placing blackout dates on my social calendar as I prepare for my upcoming wedding.  But after that, my plan is to start throwing regular get togethers if there’s enough interest.

So the questions I have for you is:

1. If I hosted a get-together, would you come?
2. What kinds of things would you be interested in doing?
3. Would you prefer them to be kid-free, or allow your kids to be there too (or a mixture of both)?

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