runlindsayrun

26

I had a *great* time with two *great* friends last night.

First, an adventure. I went to go see Erin and Jer (and Ella and Aidan) last night... and I GOT LOST in Niverville. Erin told me the address, and I knew vaguely where it *might* be - and I'd seen pictures of the house - so I thought I'd be fine. Um, yeah. Not only is that new development neighbourhood HUGE, but all the houses look remarkably similar. I actually got lost in Niverville. Insert thousands of jokes here.

I made it there, and I had a wonderful walk/talk with Erin. There's something very, very special about friends you've known forever. That girl has been through so much with me, and I with her - dating back to junior high, when we rode the same bus to school every day (the COOL BUS, of course) and analyzed our fellow bus riders' dreams each morning, to high school she made me go hug Jer to get one of his little 'warm fuzzy' yarn pieces to add to her Valentine's Day necklace, and to post-high-school when we sat on her couch for hours with our hands on her stomach waiting for Ella to kick. I love friends who you can be real and honest and absolutely authentic with. I missed her. And I love having her around again. She made my day by emailing me yesterday.

And speaking of friends you've known forever, I continued my little tour of southeastern Manitoba last night by stopping in to see Kristen and Jonny in St. Adolphe. I did not get lost. And Kristen and I planned out all kinds of details for our wedding photography - and I did a very poor job of being sympathetic about her pregnancy nausea (hey, she knew what she was getting into! LOL). Kristen and I have been friends since we were both the 'new kids' at church - probably around Grade 5 or 6. Later, we formed a fabulous foursome with Jen and Catherine and I have many, many memories of our various adventures. Come to think of it... We've been friends since I was dating Ryan and Jen was dating Jonny... Then Catherine dated Ryan and Kristen married Jonny... And I'm actually not sure how on earth those girl friendships survived into adulthood. Crazy. It's a total honour to have such a special friend do our wedding pictures.

I knew for sure that we'd made the right decision when she asked about how to manage my energy level on the day of the wedding, to keep me healthy. I suggested a 'secret signal' that involves her doing something that makes her look incredibly foolish. She politely declined.

Look at me, all nostalgic on my birthday. Over breakfast at Cora's this morning, I was remembering my 16th birthday - a full decade ago. Our whole big youth group left early that morning, on our way to volunteer in West Virginia. I spent the entire day sandwiched between Ryan and Craig in a fifteen-passenger van (on the front bench seat, so our chaperones could WAY over-supervise Ryan and I... geez), and everyone sang to me as they presented me with an ice cream cone with a sparkler stuck in the top at McDonald's somewhere near Minneapolis. It was a very good birthday.

And just for fun... Here's the group shot from West Virginia!
Hint: I'm still skinny and blonde.


Last year on my birthday, I was in Montreal with Emily and Christine - doing the Jazz Festival thing, going shopping, skinny dipping at Christine's cabin in the mountains, and getting my tattoo. And I wrote a list of 25 things I'd learned by the time I turned 25 (check out the blog archives from July 2006 if you missed it). In honour of this new birthday, I was going to create a new list of 26 things that are going to be awesome about being 26. But I started and it was stupid, because there are so many very obvious things that are going to be awesome in my life in the very near future.

So we'll leave it there, with my nostalgic ponderings, and simply enjoy the present :)

Labels: My Friends, My Life

posted by Lindsay @ 8:58 AM