WE'RE BFF!! WE'RE BFF!!

My BFF! We have been friends for so long, it's difficult to remember life without her! We have been through it all! We've even argued...well...disagreed...from time to time (and I mean this with all serious-ness, those times were always because of me! OH! I'm sorry..."yeah...you're the sorriest thing I've ever seen!"), and our friendship has grown stronger. We're closer than sisters, if that's possible. She has been the voice of reason in my very self-turbulent, dysfunctional life. I was a mess inside and out. Meeting BFF was literally a divine intervention that perservered because of her incredible patience and obedience to our Father! If you know her...if you know her and I together...you've already said "AMEN TO THAT!" See my hands??? I cannot thank God enough for bringing this woman into my life. I am so proud to have HER call ME friend. I am in awe of her life..I wanna be her when I grow up!!

She is so talented. She's a great Mom, (according to Poppy, she's a hot mama!) a wonderful, loving Nini, a devoted daughter and sister, an adoring wife (really...seriously! How many times can you actually SAY that anymore! It's awesome!), an avid runner, an amazing quilter, a beautiful singer, and the list goes on and on. Most importantly, she is a woman after God's own heart, and you know it. You can see it in her. She doesn't need to say a thing. It's in there.

And she's funny...hey...she's the "tan-loud-lady!" We crack ourselves up! Doesn't she look like BDE in this pic???

MAHVELOUS DAAHLING!!! Yeah...we're weird...that's all part of the charm that makes us...US!!!!

Now THESE two...there's just not enough space to write everything I believe about Chief and Poppy together. The gangsta-pranksta's! You do not even WANT to know what's happening in these pictures!

Still, Poppy has been a great influence on Chief...and he's pretty influential, himself. They make an awesome pair, I love them together. Chief has many friends in his life, but none as close as Poppy.

The four of us together make a pretty good team! Chief and Poppy make us laugh AND gross us out! We love them dearly. And our families have always been pretty close. Our kids were perfectly "arranged" in age for friendship...T~, Cheerios, MamaJuJu, Happy, Maestro and Rachigga. In that order. They pretty much grew up together and definately have stories of their own they could share. I'll leave that to them. Someday. Here's the youngest reason there are stories! Rachigga's second parents: she loves them so much! And they love her just as much.

For a long time...because of Chief...our fav thing to do was play pinochle. And we played it A LOT!! Goose and Mav. Ahhh...the memories. Not so much in recent years, there's just so much more to do now that we are older and retired and all that good stuff. And because we don't get to see each other all that often any more, cards seems like a waste of precious catching-up-we-haven't-had-chocolate-or-coffee-or-El-Sarape time! We used to spend every New Year's Eve together...no matter what party we were all invited to, we always left early so we could spend that ball-dropping moment just the four of us. We'd toast the New Year and play cards! Much to the children's dismay. I do remember one New Year when Poppy discovered he couldn't eat all that salt anymore. Now those were scary times. PTL THAT'S over!

All in all, it has been an amazing, incredible, awesome, loving, very, very, fun 22 years! BFF is my duet partner for crying out loud!!! We have done it all, and there's so much more to do, I cannot wait for the next 22 years!! Thanks for the memories!

And, here's to our NEXT picture-taking adventure! "Hey Nini...what's THAT???"