26 YEARS AND COUNTING

Recently I got an email from a friend from my High School years that said she was bringing her family out to where I live for their vacation. We try and catch up via email and occasional brief visits when I go back home, but we've never gotten the chance to just sit down and enjoy time together.

This past week I started to plan for the get together and having this family over for a barbecue. I don't normally have large groups of people at my home, mainly because I'm not that social when it comes to large groups of people. This was something I was not prepared for, but I knew once I got it planned out, it would be a lot of fun.

I didn't have a barbecue, but had wanted one, so I headed out Friday night after work to see what it would cost me to purchase a nice gas grill... I was prepared and yet not prepared for what it would cost me to buy one, just to have it for the weekend. I spent almost 2 hours looking, and then decided I would wait a day to make sure I made the right decision, because I knew it was going to cost quit a bit. Needless to say, I didn't get home until really late, and still had things to do so that we could get up early the next morning and head out to meet them over in Idaho.

I had hoped to be able to spend a leisurely drive going over to meet them, and perhaps be able to take photos along the way, but when I found out they were staying close to my house, I knew that would not happen. We would end up meeting them and driving the hour or so it took to get to Idaho together.

I woke up extremely tired, and neither me or my son were in the mood to get going so early. I have been putting in long days for several weeks and was running on very limited sleep, and both of us woke up extremely tired and not wanting to go anywhere. Our laundry was still dirty from the previous weekends trip, and so we had no clothes ready, which didn't help the situation at all. My son got grumpy because I wouldn't let him wear dirty clothes, and that started off our first day of fun in a not so good way.

We finally managed to get ready and out of the house, and then found out my friends were not doing to good with the directions we gave them, and they were lost, and working their way back towards town, so it ended up we weren't so far behind after all.... We finally caught up with them, and my friend rode with me and Tyler, and the rest of her family followed. We took back roads through the mountains to get over to Coeurdalene, and talked the whole way about "old times" and such. It was a wonderful way to start the visit and we really enjoyed the road trip...

more to come....

finishing up the story:

I have had so much going on in my life lately, that I have not had time to write at all. I have tons of titles, but have yet to put the stories in there.....

The weekend that my friends came to visit was so much fun, once we weeded out all of the junk that Satan brings to us to ruin the fun. Once we got on the road heading to Coeurdalene, my friend Veva and I had so much to talk about. So many things have happened in the years since school and even since we last saw each other. For one thing, both of our children have grown alot more since we last saw each other. My son Tyler has never been really tall, but now is about 5-5 which for him, means he has grown "alot" in the last year. Her boys, which were tall when I last saw them are now.... Well, its almost hard to explain. Her oldest, Bobby, is 6-7 and will be a Senior in High School this coming fall. Now, I don't believe that Zach is that tall "yet", because he is around the same age as my son, and still has a few years to grow....however, I do believe he is pushing right around 6 foot, or close to it anyways. They take after their moms side of the family, as Veva and her sister Jo were both 5-9?? or so in High School. We were very close friends, and you can only imagine the jokes that came with their "very short" friend, and two vey tall sisters. They were tall and very skinny, I was short and pudgy, not a good combination.. LOL LOL (And just as a side note, Bobby's girlfriend of several years is about 4-11 and maybe 90 pounds, although I doubt she ways that much.. LOL LOL)

Anways, we headed over to drop the kids off at a place called "triple play" which has water slides, go karts, miniature golf etc.... I don't normally spend money on this kind of stuff, but since friends were in town, I knew it would be fun for all of them to get together and spend the day, plus it would give us time to visit while the kids went and had fun. As we would find out later, Zach and Tyler hit it off right away, and they both left the weekend having found a new friend in the process. That is exciting, considering all the years I have been friends with Veva!!!

Once we dropped them off, and I got over all of my fears of leaving the kids near water without a parent ( a whole other story) we went to go look for quilting material for Veva, since the stock is better here in the "big city area". It's not something I would consider fun, but hey, it was time spent with friends, and I did enjoy looking at all the different patterns. They did have some made specifically from my home state of Montana, and those were really cool. Her husband had done this enough times that he knew the routine...Find a corner chair, and take a nap while waiting. I guess the sales lady told him that guys tended to fall asleep in the chairs, because they are very comfortable; I guess they must have been, because he fell asleep talking to another guy who was sitting there.

Once we were done there we went to Olive Garden and had lunch. Its one of my favorite places to eat, and I really enjoyed it. Having gone back to check on the kids who were bowling and wanting nothing to do with parents, we went down town and looked at some Antique stores. I had been to them last year, and they came with some personal stories attached to my visits, so it was wierd going back to them, but also worth the time, because we all found some fun things to take home with us. I always look for things that might be of interest to other people, and I came home with several gifts to give away. The joy of giving is always better than recieving, and I was able to share with a couple of people and bring home a gift for myself.

It was late afternoon when we finally finished up and started to head home. While we were heading home, I was busy thinking about a barbecue that I was going to have tomorrow afternoon, and knowing I still had a house to clean, purchase a barbecue, and buy enough food to feed about 15 people. I never do these sorts of things, so it was a big deal for me to make it right.

We ended up skipping church the next morning to get my house clean and make sure there was room enough for everyone to hang out. Then we had to go into town and buy all the food and the barbecue and get it set up before everyone showed up. We ended up with about an hour to spare to get things set up before people started coming over. I tried to match up my Christian friends in such a way that I knew they would get along with my friends family.

It turned out to be a wonderful time. Everyone got along, the men managed to find things to talk about for several hours, and the kids ran all over the place wearing themselves out as they went. My friend Tammies husband Mike cooked the hamburbers and hot dogs so I didn't have to do all the work myself, and we just sat out by the car port and just talked about whatever came to mind. I think everyone left around 830 or so, and I went in to tackle the kitchen clean up...... What a wonderful blessing it is when you can have old friends become new friends all over again, and then share them with others to allow them the friendship also..... Tyler is invited to go stay with them when he goes to his grandpa's this summer, and it sounds like both him and Zach are looking forward to getting back together to visit again. Life is good!!!!