Lake Effect: { Day 2 :: 30 Day Challenge }

2.) Post photos and write about someone you have been close to for a really long time.

That cute blond in the photos...that is Jenni.
Next to her, the equally cute little tan girl, me.
(Don't you LOVE our matching suits?)

( one of MANY camping trips we have taken together!)

In my last 30 day Challenge, I told you that I didn't know my birth father growing up.
In most of these pictures, you will see my silly cousins, my adopted Dads family.
Along with a great Dad, who came with a lot of fun cousins, I also got Jenni, my oldest and bestest friend.
We met when I was 2 and she was 4.
We played ALL the time.
Jenni's Dad is one of my Dads' best friends. They are almost like brothers.
Jenni's parents are like parents to me, in fact, I lived with them briefly in high school.
There are many ways she is connected to our family but that is a whole other
ridiculously hard to follow story.
Trust me on that one.
Jenni attends all our family Christmas parties, every birthday gathering, every wedding,
cookout & get together.
We have so many memories together.

( Jen & Maya when we lived together a few years ago)

In our middle school years, we drifted apart. She claims I was too snobby but I still say it was her.
When high school rolled around, everything changed.
It was the first time we attended school together and she took the "big sister" roll seriously.
She introduced me to all her friends, took me to all the best parties and always looked out for me.
We worked together at a local Pizza place and spent time after work sipping coffee & writing poetry on napkins in a truck stop with all of our friends. We had notebooks we would pass to each other in the halls at school containing long detailed letters & stories about what we thought the future would hold. We rewrote the words to most Beatles songs into ridiculously funny lyrics. We swam all day until we were red in my Aunts pool then passed out on her living room floor so we could wake up & do it again.
We played cards into the wee hours...Spoons, Asshole & Kings in the Corner. We danced to Jungle Boogie more times then I can count and sipped drinks around many bonfires with friends.
After high school, we went different paths again but always came back together like no time had past.
I had babies and moved to California.
She was having fun being single & dancing the night away.
When I moved back and my ex & I split, she was there.
When I needed a place to live & didn't want to be alone anymore, she moved out of her parents & in with me and the kids for a year. We had so much fun together. My kids bonded with her in HUGE ways.
She is their "Auntie" after all. ;)
When the time came for us to go our separate ways, we cried.

( a ride in my Grandpas wagon with my cousins & Jenni~pooh)

(after a HOT day of gardening at her parents house last Summer)

Over the last couple years, we don't see each other as much as I would like but I always know she is there & we can pick up right where we left off in that way that real friends can do.

This June, she is getting married & I have the honor of standing by her side.
River & Maya will also be in the wedding.
I really am so happy for her, this best friend of mine.
We're so different in so many ways, but it has never mattered.
My Jenni~pooh.