Awesome Timing

The original reason for my trip to Utah is to help take care of my sister's 3 daughters while she is with her husband in Rhode Island.  My brother in law, David, is graduating and then they are driving their car back to Utah.  The awesome thing about the timing of this is that it coincided with my baby brother and his wife having their first baby!  Being so far away from family makes it almost impossible to see any of our nieces and nephews when they are still tiny newborns.  When I realized my trip was going to coincide with meeting my new baby niece, Elizabeth, I was very excited!

My brother and I have a special relationship.  I am the oldest in our family and Blake is the youngest, with an age difference of 11 1/2 years.  That is a large enough difference that I helped out a lot with him when he was a baby and wasn't around a lot when he was a teenager.  I wasn't the annoying older sister, because I really wasn't living with him during that portion of his life.  I was the older sister he would listen to when he wouldn't listen to anybody else in the family....it rocked!  When he was little he was my little buddy that always wanted to follow me wherever I went.  I was the horrible older sister that introduced him to horror movies (which he still loves to this day).  I loved that little dude....still do!  A part of me still thinks of him as the 5 year old that would snuggle up next to me on the couch.

It's so weird to me that he's now a father of a beautiful little girl.  According to him, he wanted a girl.  Probably because that's what he has experience with, he's the only boy in a family of girls.  I know he's going to be an amazing father!  Just watching him with his little family is adorable.  I was so happy I had the opportunity to see and hold Elizabeth and spend time with Blake & Sarah.  I'm so happy for you Bucko & Sarah!  Don't every take it for granted!

This is my brother getting his hair beautified by my niece

Followed by the attitude stare down.  There are lots of these when these two get together!

Friends or Sisters.....You Decide

When I was in 7th grade I had a funny thing happen.  I had a semester that I had every single class with a girl.  At the time we were barely acquaintances.....that quickly changed.  We eventually realized that we were in every single class together and just started going from class to class together.  That led to hanging out more and more and becoming good friends, as well as our friends becoming friends.  That was the start of a beautiful story (inject sentimental tears here :) ).  Now fast forward twenty-four years.  When I look back on the friendships I've made throughout my life, most of them have dwindled and disappeared.  I still have a few friends from different schools that I occasionally connect with when I'm in the area, but I still have 2 that I'm still very close with.  One is that same girl I had every class with for one semester in Jr High and the other is the girl she was best friends with at the time, lets call them Tammie and Shelli (he he he).

These two have stuck with me through a move in high school, a church mission to another country, and most recently me getting married and moving to a different state.  I don't think I can really express to these to girls how much their friendship means to me.  They are a relationship that I can always count on to be there (hopefully that never changes).  I was also lucky enough to be able to live with them for about 4 years, before I met my hubby.  I look back on those years as some of the best years of my life up to that point.  Don't get me wrong, there were some struggles, but overall I loved hanging out with these girls every day and having the feel of being at home in our apartment!

This past week I had the opportunity to spend some time with them again.  It was a lot of fun!  It seems like forever since I've been able to spend some quality time with them.  We shopped, visited, ate, watched movies, sat it the hot tub, and talked some more!  I was able to have some alone time with both of them, which was very nice.  I'm so thankful that I had this opportunity.