Old Friends Are The Best

This week our good friends from Portland were in town to visit family for the holidays.  Genius Golfer and Jordan have been friends since high school, back in the day, and since Jordan married Jen, we have counted her among our oldest and dearest friends too. 

It was so good to see them, to catch up and to reminisce a bit.  Jen missed out on much of our single-life shenanigans, but she is a good sport and doesn't seem to mind when the three of us stroll down memory lane together.

This time of year we seem to have more than the usual share of old friend get-togethers.  The first Saturday of each December we meet up with a group from my last singles' ward--who have since married and have a Christmas party at Bill and Lori's place.  This was the 21st year of doing that.  I don't think GG and I  have missed once.  Those are good friends.  We have withstood divorces, deaths of spouses, infertility issues, and health scares together.   When we first started meeting for Christmas, the first married couple were newlyweds, and those of us who were a little slower, were playing catch up.  The conversations topics generally covered finishing school, finding an apartment, getting to know you in-laws, and curiosity about marriage that, as good friends, we could ask.  The years rolled on and soon we were talking about maternity insurance, colic remedies, family planning, and career planning.  Later, we've had to cover life insurance, custody and attorney fees as well as discipline for teenagers, kids learning to drive, college planning and even (gasp) retirement planning. 

This is a tight knit little group of dear friends.  Twenty plus years together can make that happen, even when we only see each other in person a couple of times a year.

Luckily, the other regular time we see this group is on New Year's Eve for an early-bird dinner and more catching up and well wishing and "let's do this more often". 

GG and I are certainly blessed to have such good, steady, in-for-the-long-haul friends.  Plus it is nice to hear other people validate the memories I have of the dumb stuff we used to do.