Do You Think We Will Still Be Friends When We Are Thirty?

Jennifer and I met when she transferred to my school in the third grade. She wanted to be my friend because I had long blond hair and she wanted long hair. We didn't become really good friends until about 4 years later. By that time I had shorter hair and it was brown so I am sure she wasn't just being my friend because she liked my hair.

Until that time, we were both in the same group of friends, but we weren't great friends. Our seventh grade year was the year our school district switched from a k-8 model to elementary and middle schools. A lot of kids came in from another school. Jennifer and I were placed in the same homeroom without any of our other peeps and a bunch of strange kids. I'm sure they weren't strange in a bad way, just unfamiliar to us. From that moment on Jennifer and I were buds. We spent countless evenings hanging out.

I remember one particular day we were riding bikes around her neighborhood and I asked her if she thought we would still be friends when we were thirty. She said, "If we stay in touch." That was about 25 years ago and I'm sure neither of us could have realized how much of a job staying in touch would be. We had to attend separate high schools. Jennifer stayed in the town we grew up in and married a local guy. I went away to college, got married and haven't stopped moving around.

We were bridesmaids in each others weddings. We always get together when I am in town. She and her oldest son flew out to California with my mom right after Hannah was born. This past week she and her family stopped by our house on their return trip home from visiting family in Alabama.

These two little girls were instant friends. Hannah and Jennifer's youngest daughter, Madison, are about a year apart. When Jennifer came to visit after Hannah was born, she went home with baby fever. It was less than two months later when she called to tell me she was expecting.

Here are the seven kids, Jennifer's four and my three. The little guy in the middle is Jennifer's latest addition. His name is Michelle and he was seven weeks old when we took this picture.