Friends & Memories of BU

Whew!

Our whirlwind month of travels is over.  We've had numerous doctor visits and have seen lots of friends and family over the last several weeks.

However, I'm glad to now have nearly a whole month off of travels.  I looked at my calendar this morning & realized that I don't leave town again until December. (knock on wood.  Watch a doctor's office call me in the morning to reschedule a Dec appt for Nov.)

Anyway, we've loved getting to see friends and spend time traveling together.  And today, I loved finally putting my suitcases up in my closet - I've had them out all month long as sometimes we only had 24-48 hours between trips!  (Last week, within the course of 6 days, we were on an airplane from one trip, back in the car on another trip to a second city, and then 36 hours later, in the car again going to a third city!)

This last weekend, R had a ticket to the homecoming game at our alma mater, Baylor University.  We did not have tickets for the kids and I because 

(a) I didn't want to corral children at a football game for several hours

(b) I don't understand football

(c) I hardly ever went to football games when I was actually a student at BU - not exactly known for a winning football program

(& they WON Saturday!)

(d) it sounded more fun to me to play with friends and their kids & just hang out

But

he asked us to go along with him for the weekend.

So... after an exhausting, very stressful, very emotional day with surgeons on Thursday, 

the kids and I drove back home, unpacked the car & reloaded it...

& cancelled our plans to travel to Waco on Friday.  

And then I cried myself to sleep.  It was a very hard doctor day.  I'm still processing  - more to come.

And I was unbelievably tired from the month.

So we left Saturday morning...

and headed straight to our best friends' house just in time for lunch.

We no longer live 8 houses down from each other but the T's remain some of our best friends.  And how fun that we each have 4 year old boys & 1 year old girls!

We call it the #5 friendship.  It wouldn't make sense if I tried to explain it but they're just the kind of friends that you know will be your best friends forever.  There's a history there for us - our husbands worked at camp together & were roommates in college, we've gone through life crises together, we've camped together & travelled together and even been seasick together.  We lived 8 houses down the street from one another early in our marriages and I spent more meals with them than I did my husband (he was studying a lot.)  It's the kind of fun friendship where the husbands are really good friends and the wives are really good friends and the four of us together are really good friends... which makes for a lot of laughter and an easiness in being together.

It's the kind of friendship that develops when you walk alongside each other through hard roads, when you trust one another and know that you are praying for and encouraging each others' choices and marriages and families and lives.

Jennifer is the kind of friend who knows that if something were to happen to me, while I really want her to grieve, it is more important that she get to my house immediately and clean up and organize before friends and family show up.  She is very organized.  I am not.  And I don't want people to see my house at it's worst.  And though she knows my faults and what she is getting herself into, she loves me enough to agree to this task.

That is a good friend.

Everyone needs this kind of friend, don't you think?

So it's only fitting that our kids will become friends.  Not that they have any choice - they're going to grow up being family friends for life.  

It was fun to hear Will & Mason describe each other as their "best friend."  Precious boys.

So even though we were there for BU homecoming, we hardly saw any of our college friends - just a few couples here and there and then some of our good friends from when we lived in Waco post undergrad.

I missed seeing my old roommates and good college friends - perhaps one of these days we'll make it in town in time to actually participate in the homecoming events.

We let the boys have their first sleepover...

they were pretty talkative for awhile so Jennifer & I had to put on our stern faces and lecture them about going to sleep.  I felt like such a mom.

I wish I had pictures of them asleep - they were so cute curled up side by side with their blue "gigis."

The girls did not have a sleepover. 

But they did play together in Ellie's crib after naptime.

Baths for the girls.

Longtime friends from our Waco years

Ellie & Hailey playing in their pjs together

dear friends 

We missed the homecoming parade completely.  I just couldn't get it together to get their in time.

So, before leaving town, R & I took the kids to see the floats lined up on the street on campus.

Will had a blast climbing on this one:

Seriously.  Baylor knows how to pull off a homecoming parade.  The floats are amazing!

(Even if you are seeing them a day late.)

Ellie was baffled by these guys

My old sorority - Chi-O
(although I confess that I hated float & spent the minimum hours required building ours during my years there.)

The kids and Judge Baylor

(excuse the random kids trying to hide- they were climbing all over Judge & I asked them to duck for the picture so I could just get my own children... it didn't fully work.  

Walking across campus.

Such a pretty campus.  Such good memories on those sidewalks.

I climbed a lot of trees on this campus.  I have no idea why.  But I made it a point to climb every tree in one particular area. (13 years ago.  Not now.  There was no tree climbing for me this time.  Just wanted to clarify.)
 Will sat on one limb but got scared so this is the closest he got to  climbing.

Back in the day when I was a student, the bears lived in a pit.  

Now, they have a "habitat" & it was pretty awesome.

Ellie loved the bears & was not happy when we made her leave.

(Excuse the fact that only Ellie was in green.  Will did wear green the day before (despite wanting to wear Batman - which we talked him out of because it would have been black & yellow - the colors of Mizzou who we played & beat.)  

We love Baylor & we loved our time there...

but we probably aren't going to win any awards for being loyal alum.)

Good times.  So fun to see a few friends, watch our children become life long friends with our dear friends, & show them the place were Mommy & Daddy really began to fall in love, where we first lived after becoming married, & where Mommy first taught school (Go UHS!)  

Oh good times back in Waco, Texas.

And now... to catch up on life.  I think I did 5 loads of laundry today, planted probably 150 pansies, and grocery shopped!