Journaling.

This last weeks question was about how my grandparents met.  And I don't know and my parents are gone, and I have a second to write, so I'm going to go to the next question:  What are the most special and valued friendships of your life.

Easy!
My Mom
My Sisters
Cara
Jana
Melissa
Danica and Kayla

BAM!  Now why?

My Mom is amazing!  I think that more and more each day as I do the mom thing.   She made it seem so easy and she did SO much!  I remember she volunteered or everything.  She was on all the mom committees, plus she worked, plus she was grandmaing since I was 8 and doing great at that.  She did think I was an odd kid (she was right) but I always knew she loved me and I always trusted her.  Even now she's not one that would ever let an opportunity to serve pass her by.  She does so much for me and she's put up with me for 37 years now!  I call her probably once a week to ask her how to cook something, or what to do with a certain cut of meat that I bought  without a plan, or what a good price is for artichokes.  She's like a domestic encyclopedia. ( kids, if you don't know what an encyclopedia is, google it...it was google when I was a kid)She's a pretty cool mom.

My sisters.   When I was a kid, my sisters were literally the "cool older sisters".  They were 8, 12, 15 and 18 years older than me, so they were doing ALL of the cool stuff, and I was just a kid. Luckily, they took me most everywhere with them, games, Holbrook, parties, everywhere! (probably means I was the cool baby sister, just saying). And now, now it feels like we're all the same age.  Just last night I got a text from one of my older sisters that started "I've got an important question, and it stays between you and me". I LOVE sister conversations that start like that!  haha.  And I love that I can throw those same questions at them and get what I need to out o them.  They're all geniuses and have great parenting advice and have made amazing offspring to be great examples to my kids and great friends to me.  Anytime my sisters invite me to do something...I NEVER say no! (except to move back to the valley...I just can't).  They're so much fun!  I have a super fun dinner date with them in Payson this Thursday and a cruise with all of them in a month.  I"M SOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!

Cara cracks me up!  We've been friends since we were toddlers, best friends since Jr. High, Roomates, Mom's together, and always had each others backs.  Our fights in HS were hilarious!  We'd draw mean pictures of each other, and exaggerate each other's big features.  She'd make me with big ole bug eyes and I'd make her all lips with tiny eyes.  We were in each other's wedding lines, we had our baby girls just months apart, and then a few of our boys together, including our Ruston and Pearcen who look like brothers and are known as our calm kids. Cara's great!

Jana and I are celebrating our 20 year anniversary this year.  We met freshmen year of college when we became roommates.  We hit it off instantly.  She was an amazing domestic goddess, I was a ridiculously crazy girl that dodged school as much as I could.  Together we learned SO much from each other, and not a thing has changed.  We still talk every week.  We help each other with teenage boy issues, with bread recipes, with "be a good mom valentines parties", and earlier this month we took our girls to a play together, which we learned to never do again.  haha!  Jana's the one that pulls me out of rough spots in life. She speaks my love language and hopefully I speak hers. We both know each other's darkest secrets.  She knows me as well as Jase knows me.  She's amazing!

Melissa is my Texas best friend. We knew each other for a year or so but when she became my visiting teacher, we were forced to speak, and it took a few times of talking, and then me taking her and her hubby's pictures before we realized, we're the same.  We need each other. She's my friend that sends me funny things every month or so to crack me up, and she's my girls trip buddy, my "we like to dress our kids nice even if other friends think it's dumb" buddy.  We have very similar taste in house crap, she's the calm to my crazy and I'm the less educated to her smartie pants.  She even dated my 2nd cousin years before we met at BYU...we were destined to be besties!

I remember babysitting danica when I was 8 or 9 years old.  It was my favorite thing ever!  For years I loved seeing danica and her sisters.  I was the cool aunt.  Even when I as in college, I'd come visit and be the cool aunt.  For a few years, when she was in HS, I was just "the aunt", but again when she got married and we had a couple of babies at the same time, we became best friends rather than aunt and niece.  We spent most every day together for a few years when we lived by each other, and now that I've moved, we still text and get together when we can, and our boys are still best friends, and now our little girls are becoming best friends.  Its makes my heart happy to know that they have family for best friends like I do.  Danica also speaks my love language well. She 's so great at giving me the cutest gifts that make me feel cool and hip.  Anything she gives me is 10x cooler than it really is because she gave it to me.  In my eyes, she's the coolest person I know.....along with her sister Kayla who has now made her way back into my life!  I wish I could spend EVERY SINGLE DAY with these two!  Raising our kids together, cooking together, crafting together, working out together.  They're just awesome, hilarious, genuine and talented! IL OVE  THEM!