New Shoes, Old Friends

When I was in the fifth grade, my dad retired from the Air Force and accepted a job at a university in Arkansas. So we moved. From Hawaii. To Arkansas.

Yeah.

I distinctly remember one of my last nights in our home in Hawaii; I had been lying awake thinking about the move to Arkansas and one question in particular kept me from dozing off. Worry consumed me. So I did what any kid does in that situation. I woke up my mom to put my mind at ease.

"Mom...when we live in Arkansas, will I have to wear one of those sun bonnets like Laura wears on Little House on the Prairie?"

In my mind Arkansas = rural prairie land = need for sunbonnets. Little did I know that when I arrived at my new school in Arkansas, those kids would think Hawaii = island paradise = hut = need for grass skirts and coconut bras. This whole making friends thing was not going to be easy.

But as luck would have it, my parents found a new church and its pastor just so happened to have a daughter my age. We were instant friends, and along with the other girls in our age group at church we filled the next few years with joining the youth group, navigating junior high, and making the school dance team. Let me tell you, spandex and sequins has never looked so good on 7th graders as it did on us! ;)

The summer before our freshman year, Jennifer's dad accepted a new job at a church across the state. We were all heartbroken. Our moms were good enough to drive us back and forth for a few visits, but we made new friends, graduated from high school, attended different colleges, and got married. And over the past few years our little group has reunited via Facebook, blogging, and other joys of modern technology.

And now Jennifer is having a baby! And that town that she moved to all those years ago? Only one hour from Memphis. And guess who else lives in Memphis? Emily, one of the other girls in our age group from that same church all those years ago.

Funny how all those years ago, God provided a friend for this sunbonnet-fearing little girl. And here I am, 16 years later, once again the new girl in town. And reconnecting with those old friends means just as much now as it did when I met them for the first time.

Here are the three of us after the baby shower. Me, Jennifer, and Emily. Reunited, and it feels so good!

And guess what came just in time for the shower? My new little lovelies that I told you about last weekend. It's not a sunbonnet, but something tells me that my prairie girl Laura would be mighty proud to sport these on the open range...

(Notice Weber's look of approval behind me. This is her favorite perch when I'm getting dressed in the mornings. Sometimes I consult her on my outfit. She always agrees. But that's another post all together. )