31 Years of Friendship

I met Andie when we were in the 7th grade. We became best friends and did everything together. We went to the beach and even bought matching shirts and sweatshirt jackets. Andie is responsible for teaching me how to french braid--she had long, long hair and she always wore it in a french braid down the back of her head. When she spent the night at my house, it was my job to braid her hair.

She threw a surprise party for me on my 16th birthday. She got an upper classman (that I had a major crush on) to ask me out. We were supposedly double dating and when we got to her house to pick her up, there were a bunch of people there. He of course left me at the party and I was crushed! Andie is the one that I drove around Reston with on the day I got my license...60 miles in one afternoon!

We went our separate ways after our sophomore year and then we reconnected during the summer after my sophomore year in college. She helped me through a really difficult time and was there to talk and eat ice cream with. Then we didn't see each other again until our 10 year reunion. We were both married with children..I was living in Baltimore and she was living in Connecticut. She moved back to the area in 1999 and in 2003 we started planning our 20th reunion. We both love to plan a good party and we ended up talking almost every day during the year that we planned the reunion.

We've kept in touch over the past five years and this summer, we, along with our committee, planned our 25th reunion. She has kept me sane through the entire process and I value her friendship...no other friend I have has known me for as long as she has...31 years to be exact. Yikes, that is a LONG time! I still feel like that girl in the blue sweatshirt from 1978--just wish I was as thin!



Thanks for a great weekend. Love you girl and I look forward to many more years of memories.

25 Years

It's hard to believe I graduated from high school 25 years ago! Last night, the twins and I went to a football game at my old school. Tomorrow night is the "big event"...let the festivities begin.

I Need One of These!

I need a cricut! It is my dream tool to own for all of my scrapbooking and crafting projects--it is a personal electronic cutter that uses cartridges (that you purchase separately, of course) to cut beautiful designs and alphabets. Just imagine what I could come up with if I owned one of these!

I just had to enter this contest!

This is contest entry for those crazy folks at TodaysMama and Cricut. Be sure to check out Cricut's cool new cartridges and the chance at $30,000 in travel for you and your friends at the Great Gypsy Escape site! http://bit.ly/FWcud

Great Escape Meme

1. If you could escape to anywhere in the world where would it be?
I would go to Tuscany. Hawaii would be a close second.

2. What song do you play when you are by yourself in the car?
Anything by Daughtry and "Permanent" by David Cook.

3. If you had a night to yourself, and money was no object, what would you do?
I would curl up with a good book, mexican take-out and a bottle of Shafer Chardonnay. Boring, I know, but I run so much that this would be my idea of heaven.

4. What is your guilty pleasure?
Massages and pedicures.

5. What is the farthest place you have traveled away from your home?
Japan as a child, Hawaii as an adult.

6. Last book that you couldn't put down?
"The Siege" by Stephen White.

7. When you want to escape into another time, what movie do you watch?
Top Gun (back when Tom Cruise wasn't so strange!) I saw it for the first time when I was in college...and at least 20 times since then.

8. What is your favorite local escape?
Bethany or Rehobeth Beach.

9. How do you escape on a budget?
Take a "family bike ride" to PA with lunch at Paesano's (Best Pizza ever!)

10. Best food you've ever had while on vacation.
That's a hard one. We've had so many great meals on vacation, but I'd have to say it was at Longhis's in Lahaina on our trip to Maui in 1990. We had a large group so we tried a little bit of everything...can't even remember what we had, just that it was fabulous!

Want to try to win a Cricut too? Go forth and meme!

8 Points

Here is the latest member of our family. We call him 8 point and he has been in our yard for the past couple of days. We have an acre of woods surrounding our house and we often have does and fawns, but rarely do we see "the poppa" hanging in our yard. For some reason, we have a lot more deer this year than we usually do.



He is in our yard at all times during the day, although morning and late afternoon appear to be his favorite times.



It takes a lot to scare him away. Usually when he hears us, he looks up and wags his tail like a dog.



He needs to move on since he has obviously created his share of offspring. Yesterday, we had five deer in our yard-one doe and the rest were babies.

Fishuneral #2

This was the view of King Titus when we woke up on Saturday morning. I seem to recall the same view of a different fish 8 months ago. We finally managed to pull off a fishuneral last night. (Thank goodness because he was starting to stink).

Ammy loves to lead the service. She always says a few words and asks those in the crowd to add their comments. I decided it would be inappropriate to add how happy I am that I no longer have to clean out the fishbowl so I just kept my mouth shut and took the pictures.

Flushing the fish.

Goodbye King Titus.



Some of us will miss you.