Summer of Friends

The month of July brought with us some VISITORS. Did you hear me? Because I typed that word LOUD. I said VISITORS!

Let me take a moment to regain composure.

I also needed to regain composure because I'm currently in the process of making homemade caramel corn, and the I'm pretty sure I burned the first batch of popcorn. Which can be easily hidden with caramel.

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One of my BFF's from college, Kate, came:

 There we are on my back porch and Kate obliged when I bossed her to let me get a picture of us.

Kate and I met my sophomore year of college. We were both pursuing degrees in music so we had tons of classes together and we became roommates. I had bangs back then. I don't highly recommend it except for Kate.

We went on choir tour together to Petoskey and Mackinaw Island: I'm not sure if she's ever seen this picture before. Here you go Kate:

Many of these photos have been ripped from a scrapbook I kept and scanned into our external hard drive for fear that one day the scrapbook might drown in a flood. A torturous death.

We were in choir together. I distinctly remember that during the weekend of the performance from which this picture was taken, our choir was singing "June is Busting Out All Over" (from Rodger & Hammerstein's "Carousel") only there were several choir members who changed the words to "Joy is Busting Out All Over" because I had to borrow the dress you see me wearing and it was a tad small in the cleavage region.

Ya'll took a quick look at my chest, didn't you?!

We ate brownie batter together on Tuesday's when we watched one of two movies: "Newsies" or "While You Were Sleeping" This was sometimes in addition to an order of Little Cesar's bread sticks. I don't think you've ever seen this picture before either Kate. Today's your lucky day!

Here we are smiling for the camera in our stunning black choir dresses:

Since you can't actually see the dress, here's a better view: "Hiiiiii".

We were in Bethel's production of "My Fair Lady" together. We were both "cockney's" and I must admit that I had one of the best accents in the entire production. Our piano player (who was a genius) suggested that those who needed help with their accent to come and be coached by me. No one did. Possibly because I couldn't actually teach it. I still remember my lines from the play.

She played the piano for me during one of my favorite song's for my senior voice recital. I still feel like I might get diarrhea from fright when I think of that performance. I'm deathly afraid of singing on stage. She helped calm my nerves back stage. I don't think I puked on her.

And... when we graduated, I cried. This is us with our other BFF and roommate Danielle (with no 'e' at the end but she threatens to kill me every time I let that little secret be known).

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One of my BFF's from high school, Elizabeth came and visited about 2 weeks ago. 

Jason thinks he's soooo funny. 

I don't have nearly as many pictures of her or of us together. But I have a lot of memories.

She drove a gray Corsica with maroon interior and carted me around with her nearly everywhere she went. We were in band and theater together.

She got the lead in our high school production's "Anne of Green Gables" which is my favorite movie of all time and I wanted to be Anne. However, she did an awesome job and she had red hair. So. I had to be gossipy old Rachel Lynde. 

She was also one of our marching band's drum majors, and she really isn't all that grumpy though this picture makes it seem so.

Of course she came to my high school graduation open house and it is now that I'm noticing for the first time that we both chose polka dots. You can see in the right hand corner, another cropped picture which is the very tan knee of my friend Crystal Keen.

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Lastly, we got to have breakfast with a Youth for Christ friend (one of Jason's past coworkers) last Saturday.

 

 I don't have any old pictures of Scott. He should be thankful for that because I have made it clear that I would post them if I had them. I do, however, have plenty of posts on this very blog of many of the days that Jason and I were Youth for Christ workers. 

Such as this one.

And let us not forget our YFC trip to San Diego, CA.

Or the JV ski trip.

 

Finally, one final note about friends. Just this morning, I received an email from a friend in California. Well, I've actually never met her in person, only through correspondence for work. It doesn't really matter because she is hilarious and I asked her if I could share with you all what she wrote to me in her email. She didn't respond because I imagine she hasn't received my email asking her if I could do so. She should learn to be more efficient... 

 

Loved the pictures of your hike!  One of them looked totally not real, the background was so beautiful with you guys and the kids.  So I am thinking you might have just lounged around with a twinkie and a yoo-hoo and photoshopped your sporty selves onto the background :)  It is so hot here, we have been lounging around in the ac.  Well, actually, we hiked down the cliffs at a local beach because a dead whale washed ashore and everyone was talking about the smell.  So, naturally, we thought "how bad can it really be?"  My friend, it can really be that bad.  There are no words, no words.  We spent hours watching people gagging, and then try to get a little closer, and then gag again.  Best.  Day.  Ever.  The last bad thing was:  the smell embedded itself into those little hairs in our noses.  No amount of blowing, sneezing, or picking could remove the stench.  2 hours of that noxious blend in our noses.  When we got home, our cats literally threw themselves on our shoes.  No lie...they heaved themselves on our shoes as we tried to walk.  We ended up having to put the shoes on the patio outside our bedroom, and the cats just stood at the slider and stared and meowed at the shoes.

So, thats what we did on our summer vacation so far.  Glad we could share this little moment together :)

I love friends.