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| Amber, Amy, Heidi, Allaree, Chelsea and Kelsey |
All of us here have first graders and last year when we sent them all to Kindergarten we'd sometimes get together for lunch afterwards at Arctic Circle. This year, now that the first graders are in school all day, we each have a preschooler (except Allaree) that we do morning walks with instead! Kohen and
I both look forward to seeing our friends.
I just love friends. I NEED friends.
Amy is a teacher so she doesn't get to come on the walks while she's at work, but still wanted some girl time, so we all ended up going away for a night on Friday! 5 of the 6 of us were all in Young Women's together a couple years ago. The same ones that all live on the same street together too! #PartridgePals
Amy is right across the street, Allaree is next door to her and we all moved in within months of each other! And now they're all part of Book Club too! Every reason to get together.
So Friday night we all went to dinner at Maria Bonitas and then stopped at Smiths, where a sweet old woman asked us if we were going to school! What a compliment Haha
We stayed at a house in Orem for the night, that also had a hot tub! My favorite. We found everyones enneagrams (4 of us are enneagram 9), ate ice cream, played SkyJo and stayed up till 4am talking.
The next morning we all went to Top Golf for a game and lunch before heading back home. My first night away from Kolt (since he came home from the NICU) was worth it!
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Heidi has become one of my very best friends though. Our kids are all the same ages and are good friends, which makes it easier, but she'll talk to me everyday on Marco Polo and I love it. And she is just the best friend to have too. She makes peach desserts and pumpkin rolls to share, brings me Crumbl cookies sometimes and juice when we're sick. She taught me how to make bagels and cinnamon rolls and I take her donut peaches for her birthday. She is part of the Kyle Fan Club cause our husbands are both named Kyle. She loves FRIENDS, dyes my hair for me and was my hiking buddy all summer long!
April 2013 I wrote a blog post about Being A Friend and it was interesting to read it again in this different season of life and remember how I was feeling then vs. seeing how things have changed now that I'm a mom and stay home, but also how some things have stayed the same. Being in the same season of life definitely makes a difference for friendships, but for me distance isn't a factor at all. It's so crazy how some of the people I used to be best friends with and thought would be around forever, just aren't, mostly by no choice of my own. And some friends I don't see as often as others, but I love that we can get together once in a while and feel like nothing has changed! I don't understand why some things change and it can be hard because my loyalties run deep, but one of the things I have learned in order to be happy is letting go. I've stopped trying to keep relationships that are one sided, fake, emotionally exhausting or complicated and found ones that don't make me feel like I'm the problem. I've realized that I don't need everyone to like me, just a few good people. The ones that prove they want to be my friend. To have a friend you gotta be a friend. Back then I didn't feel like I had a best friend and I wanted to be able to have that. I also wondered if it would be easier or harder to have friends once we all had children. I would say easier for sure! Even though some people just use their kids as an excuse to not make plans I feel like my kids are a better excuse for me to make plans so that they can play with friends too. I love play dates! And I love friends that don't tell me how far of a drive it would be to get together. I love friends that don't make everything a competition or get jealous, but instead support, encourage and motivate me as I reach my goals. The ones that make me feel like I'm doing a good job. I am a big believer in mom tribes. The friends that get exactly what it feels like to me a mom and love it, but hate it all in the same day. They get it in a way that husbands just don't most of the time. We need to talk and laugh and vent. In front of my real mom friends I can flick my kid and not feel judged by it. They don't get mad when plans need to be canceled. They understand cause they are moms too, but they do not try to find reasons to not follow through either. They take turns planning play dates or girls nights. They remember your birthday and want you to feel special. They are the people that you can 100% be yourself with, maybe even fart in front of. The ones that you can stay in your pajamas to go to the park with for a play date. No shower, no makeup, no bra? No problem. And when you get desperate you can ask them to watch your kids and not not feel horrible about it. So here's to my mom tribe! Thank you for being there for me and making it easy to have friends, because I need you and love you! My #1- Ashley I cannot say enough about this girl. I just love her. She is my biggest supporter of everything I do! She is genuinely the most caring person and so aware of others around her and trying to help them. She just makes everyone feel so special and is always writing encouraging notes. I love that she thinks she's a dog person and how similar she is to Kyle in so many ways that make us laugh. I would not even know Kyle if it wasn't for Ashley coming to be my college roommate! She lived with me at Raintree where we made awesome home vids about hickey be gone and had chocolate fountain parties, came with me to Hawaii to live in the Quiet House, where we swam with sharks, baked like lobsters, caught crabs and ate lots of Goober. She got me a job with her at Gandolfos, where we played an epic game of HAHA, sang Hairspray songs with me the whole way up to the Jazz game we decided to go to, she loves Friends and She's the Man with me, came back to YW camp when I wanted to be there with my sister. Then she let me know all about the acai bowls at Aubergine and Co. so I didn't need to miss the ones on North Shore. She was there to run the first 5K I ever ran with me and then made me an awesome poster when I ran a 10K, after having Hazel she came to have a sleepover with me for my birthday, thought to send us a Boo for Halloween when she was living in Logan and I was living in Cedar City, and made me the cutest cross stitch elephant for Kasen's nursery. She is always up for a weekend getaway to go to TOFW with me. From high school choir, ward trek, sledding, flour fights, Grinch nights, throwing my bridal shower to our weekly summer splash pad dates and being the biggest supporter of the photography business, she is the bestest friend! AND I don't even have to get on the freeway to go to her house anymore.  This is Katey, my oldest best friend! We've been friends since I was in 1st grade and she moved just 3 houses up from mine. She used to take forever to finish her Saturday chores, leaving me dying to go play with her. She taught me all about Gone with the Wind and tea parties. The Secret Garden and Hocus Pocus will also always remind me of her. We loved playing indians, making arrowheads on our friendship rock, finding forts, making clubs, and were the only ones to convince our parents to keep kittens from the Nielsens. #RIPsocks She was the first person I told when I found out my parents were getting divorced. The bus stop was right outside her house so when it was cold outside we would all wait just inside her door and while they ate their yummy breakfast, like german pancakes, that her mom made. High school was all about the BRPs and NKDs and the summer I went to BYUH Katey was also there living in the Quiet House on the Point with us. She was with me the first time we went to Goats Island and saved Dillweed, jumped off the point with me and survived being lost on our hike in the mountains in the dark. She shares my undying love for Lake Powell with me and is the only person I've ever sang duets with at church. She was my choir tour at Disneyland buddy and my YW camp tent mate. She brought me flowers and a balloon to my work on my birthday one year, is always up for getting Thai food with me and plans the best Galentine's sleepovers at her cabin house. The day after Kasen was born she drove down to Cedar City to meet him and came back for his blessing day. One time she hit me in the face with a shoe cause I was being too loud when she wanted to sleep at a sleepover. But I still love her!  Sydney is Jon's wife and Jon has been Kyle's best friend since they were little boys. They were there the day that Kyle proposed to me and were our midnight bowling buddies ever since. When we moved to the 6-plex, once we got married, Jon and Sydney lived there too and it was so much fun! We rode to work together at Myler Disability, played games and had dinner dates and movie nights and slept in the backyard together and camped at the hot pots. We lived apart for a few years, but they moved to Eagle Mountain and now we are in the same Stake! Walking distance once again and kids carpool buddies. They are our friends that eat Asian food and sushi with us, (even though she's allergic to shellfish) and will walk to the snow cone shack. She makes amazing birthday cakes, likes watching So You Think You Can Dance with me and was one of the only people who brought me something when I miscarried. We had lots of fun cruising Alaska with them last year!  Becca and Lindsay were also a couple of my best friends recently. They lived across the street from me and were the reason I was so happy we moved to this exact spot! Except Becca has moved away now and that is so sad. I feel like I was destined to become friends with Becca. As soon as I moved in we were called to to be on the Relief Society activities committee together and she was also my visiting teaching companion and Quinn was in my nursery class until we served in YW together and got to sleep next to each other at YW camp! It wasn't long after moving in that she invited us over to their house for pizza. And she is always up for anything! She's run 5 of my 5K races with me and is super generous about inviting us to go stay at her parent's cabin near Cedar City. She loves traveling and theme parks and musicals and Halloween just like me. And she was always offering to watch my kids! We did regular swaps for temple dates and it was the best.  They were also our travel buddies there for a minute too when we all went on a cruise and then Disneyland the next year. We've spent nearly every holiday there is together, from New Year's Eve parties, sledding New Year's Day, Valentines dates, Easter egg hunts and Easter BBQs, Fourth of July BBQs, Birthday lunches, Trick-or-Treating together, Friendsgiving, and preschool Christmas performances when Kasen, Quinn and Knox were all in the same class. Plus the holiday weekends at the cabin for President's Day, MLK and Memorial Days, fireworks on Pioneer Day and even a taco night on Cinco De Mayo and Pi Day on 3/14. I made our own hashtag #GELkidds (Gneiting,Eason,Liddiard) to share our insta pictures too. We had them all over for dinner a couple weeks ago, but it's definitely been different since the Eason's moved. Can't say I'm not bad at planning a reunion to get together though! I always look forward to catching up with friends.  |
| Childhood Neighbor Friends |
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| Jr. High Friends |
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| Mission Friends |
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| Sister Sleepover Friends So thank you for showing up for me. Thank you all for choosing to be my friend, spending time with me and adding to my happiness. I love you guys! |
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