Blessed with great friends is an understatement. If you've been around here long enough you have certainly seen these girls. College BFFs that we all went our separate ways after graduation then met back up in 2008 for a reunion that was a blast but a bit awkward since we hadn't really kept in constant contact from the early 90's til then.
In January of 2011 we met up for another weekend reunion to celebrate our 40th birthdays and it was the best, most fun weekend of my life!! LOVED the entire thing. We consistently face*booked (can't believe that's now a household verb) for a year then in January of this year The Mexican (as SHE always says!!!) got us started on a group message of texting on our i*Phones.
Our lives have not been the same since.
On a DAILY basis with a bit of a break on the weekends we have texted until our fingers and hands are stuck in the position of the middle photo above. We each downloaded the app for the cute little icons and now have our own language where we've taken different icons and given them our own meanings. So much so that when I am typing an email, on FB or texting someone else I want to use the icon for LOL or laughing so much I'm crying or clapping hands or.....well, you get the picture. My mind now thinks in those icons. The ones in the pic represent each of us so when we are talking we use the icon instead of our names for speed and for fun. I'm the pink hibiscus, The Mexican is the sunflower, the curly haired one is the sea shell conch and the sun is for our resident Pollyanna.
Our weekend was spent in Oklahoma where Sunflower lives. She's done all the driving before so she told us we had to drive to her this time which meant Conch & Sun drove a couple of hours, picked me up then we three proceeded to drive another three hours to reach our party destination. Fun times. Very.
The Sunflower had all kinds of fun prepared for us including a darling anklet....that we are all sporting in the pic above with our flip flops on.....which she had made that has each of our icons in charm form. Darling!!! I love stuff like that. We each exchanged some little love gifts then headed out the door for an hour's drive to eat some of the BEST southern fried chicken and fried okra ever at a little dive in the middle of no-where-Oklahoma. You have to hover around a table to get a seat as it's first come first serve, then you eat the meal on a piece of white butcher paper with your fingers only which consists of fried chicken, fried okra, bread, pickles, onions and ranch dressing. No other choices on the menu. Great adventure.
We then made our way to the lake where we watched the most amazing sunset and took the pic of us four in the collage below. I was so happy to post on FB that we were at the lake then realized that behind us in the pic is the parking lot. LOL!!! Nerd.
After staying up past 1:00AM ( a MONUMENTAL task for this pumpkin!!) talking we got up on Saturday morning for a Star*bucks jump-start to a day filled with shopping, a dive burger joint, shopping at Tinker* Air* Force* Base (which was such a new experience for me!!), seeing The Lucky* One (my THIRD time!!! lol!!!) in a funkified dollar theater, riding four wheelers, getting chair massages, making homemade Japanese food (The Sunflower lived in Japan with her military husband for awhile), listening to tons of old music, going through old pics and talking way late into the wee morning hours on the back patio under the stars along with a beautiful fire flickering away.
We each have other friends in our lives, of course, who are dear and special and never to be compared in any way because God allows us friendships to meet many different needs in our lives and for us to be that for someone else. The four of us love that our bond started strong back before we really knew who we were going to become as grown-ups. Sweet, sweet times with these girls.
