Lifelong Friends...

There are few people in our lives that we can say have been our friends so long that it is hard to remember before they were our friends. My friend Laurie has been my friend since 8th grade. Yup, since we were like 12 or 13 years old. We were very close for a long time and after high school drifted apart as we went to different colleges, etc. We got back in touch during our engagements (got married 3 months apart) and kept up every few months during our first few years of marriage.

It was when Tim and I moved to Smyrna that things picked up again with our friendship. I did a mapquest from our new house to her house and it was literally 1 mile door to door! It was very exciting as she was pregnant with her first child and Grace was a baby. Really long story short...her husband(also a friend from high school...they are h.s. sweethearts)was doing his residency at Emory and my husband was getting his MBA part time after work. Our lives collided as we both endured long days and lonely nights while our husbands were doing their thing. She had 2 babies in 17 months and well....I had 3 in 3 1/2 years. Needless to say, we kept each other partially sane during those insane times. Well, Laurie's husband finished his surgical residency last June about 1 month before Tim finished his MBA. Kind of cool how God's timing works. Well, they moved to Rome, GA last July to take a job and I have missed them tremendously. Friendship like ours is very hard to replicate.

The really cool part of this story is our kids love to play and hang out. Tim is on his annual boy's weekend trip this weekend and so the kids and I hopped in the car and headed to Rome. Laurie and I went to the pool with 5 children! In order their ages are: 5,4,3,3,2. ARE WE CRAZY???? NO, we aren't crazy...in fact we had a blast and I think the kids had even more fun. At one point we were discussing how we probably are crazy to do what we do but we were sitting in chairs outside the pool while all 5 kids were in the pool! Now it was only 2 feet of water but the kids were totally entertaining each other! I love that our kids seem to jive. They all scream when we tell them that we are getting together and we have even had a few spend the night parties with ALL 5 kids! (Now that was crazy, I admit!) I am so thankful to God for all the amazing people He has put in my life but I am especially thankful that He gave me Laurie so many years ago. I pray that as our kids grow we can pass on that true authentic friendship that we have shared for so long. Pictures from the day to follow...I left the camera in the car tonight!

on the see-saw at Laurie's

posing at the pool...sorta

the 5 kids in the pool