Friends - It's Not Just in Syndication

There are things I just love about the summer, though at this moment I'm all set and ready for it to just be over. What I love the most about it is seeing friends. We don't get to see people enough in the winter months, since living in New England we get that thing called weather, but the summer months seem to offer us more opportunities to see those we love and care about.

This summer we have been very busy in regards to seeing friends, which is a good thing. We started out August with a visit to our friends the Delaney's for a birthday party for their youngest daughter. Patrick and Sara are from our Barnes & Noble time, and they are also among our Western Mass friends.  I love going the Patrick and Sara's for anything. It's always a good time full of great conversation, amazing food and a lot of fun. This birthday Sara presented us with homemade rainbow ice cream cake (and rainbow cupcakes). Where else are you going to get that? Another reason I love going is I think Lex (Sara's Chicken Whisperer) has a crush on Sara and Loki on Patrick (she just stares at him in awe). Along with seeing the Delaney's, the kids love to see the Dave's (the Delaney chickens). 

After visiting with our Belchertown friends we moved on to a cookout with some more of our Western Mass friends. I would usually say they are Mad Dog's friends, but that is just to state who they started out with because they are our friends now. We had the pleasure of being invited to Dave & Melissa's new place (with the help of Lori poking Dave about it - thank you Lori!), where Mad Dog got his geek speak on with some old friends. I think Mad Dog figured out he has known this group of friends for about 14 to 15 years now. Our time with them offered Lex and Loki a little kid play and gave Gabrielle the time to mope about not having anything to do (big surprise there). Lori, who recently became a mother, was their with Harper her sweet little girl, which Lex and Loki were both fascinated with and in between checking on her they played with Maeve (Dave and Melissa's Daughter) and Tristan (Bill and Heather's Son). It was a wonderful time and we managed to catch up with one another between checking to see what trouble the kids were into.  

This weekend we had a full plate. Starting with Build & Grow on Saturday morning before heading out to our friend Michael's 40th birthday party at Colt State Park in Rhode Island. This party gave us the opportunity to catch up with our Eastern Mass friends, some of which I've known 15-16 years. I hate the fact that we don't get to see each other more often, but with work, schedules and now in some cases kids it does get difficult to find the time. We do our best, picking up where we left off and finding a way to catch up in the few moments we have together. These people have been a huge part of my life for so long I can't imagine them not being there forever. 

In the case of this party, I even managed to get to catch up with my brother Kevin, since he has adopted into my college group of friends years ago. The kids had a great time, though with no nap we were a bit cranky. Loki managed to find a following of kids who kept wanting to pick her up and play with her, while Lex tried to play with everyone but we think he was a bit to sensitive to get it right at that point. Gabrielle was bored, but we knew that was going to happen - we tried to explain to her what the day would be like. She didn't really chit chat with people, thought several tried to talk to her about school, books and other things. In the end she sat and read for most of the time, but stuck close to Mad Dog most of the time. 

After getting a little sunburn we headed out to my Mom's. Where we met up with Kevin, Brent and our friend Blue. My Mom had offered to watch the kids so that Mad Dog and I could go out for a late anniversary dinner that evening. We took her up on it. Our plans were to take us into Somerville for dinner which allowed us to extend our time with Blue, while we gave her a lift back to the city. 

I'm going to make some kind of resolution, to make an extra effort to get in touch with people, make plans and find the time for our friends a lot more. This won't be a new years kind of a thing, but a now kind of a thing. Making sure that the fall and winter months are not the reason for those the large gaps between visits. These people are our families as much (and in some cases even more so) that our actual families. Here is to more friends, more time and more memories.