"a wise and humorous friend, whom I love much"

Today, my absolute best friend in the universe came to visit. The last time I saw her was just under three years ago, at her wedding. Terrible, I know. Unfortunately, we just haven't had the opportunity to see each other since that time, and so this friend and I, who have been friends since we were practically babies ourselves, had not even met each other's children yet. What is amazing about this particular friend is that we are practically family now. We grew up together, meeting and becoming best friends at the age of 6. And by some immense cosmic fortune, her older brother and my older sister fell in love and were married. Eight years later, they have three little boys. So even though we haven't been able to see each other in a long time, we still have very strong connections. Our friendship is also the kind that is easy to fall right back into. Every time I see her, it's as if we've never been apart, even though we have not had a tremendous amount of opportunity to see each other since we went off to college.

Happily, one of the things about our move is that we have found ourselves in the same state as this dear friend and she made the journey to our side of it to visit. I cannot explain the immense joy I felt in seeing her again, for the first time in a very long time. I was also so delighted to meet her little boy--there is so much joy in meeting the offspring of people you love dearly. Her little man was positively adorable, and I felt such love for him, just because he is the son of someone I consider my sister. Add to it that he is the cutest little firecracker (and we are really jealous of that red curly hair, even if his mom says he has the temper to match!).  Sis took to him right away and is already asking when we get to go to "Mommy's friends' house" to visit.

{totally not sure about the camera::looking to Dad for a little comfort!}

{starting to warm up to me a bit!}

{oh what fun to chase!}

For the record, Sis is NOT taller than *C*. Even though he is a year younger, they are almost exactly the same height! This picture is just deceiving.

In other news...I need knew nicknames for my kiddos on the blog. I am not keen on the idea of putting their real names out there, but Sis and The New Guy were always just sort of temporary, and not very indicative...so if you have any great ideas, please share!

Have one fantastic day!