Friends Both Old and New

Fifteen hours in a car with a 4 and 7-year-old is an awfully long road trip. It's even longer when it's preceded by a nasty fever and ends with a race to beat a blizzard.

But that's what our friends did in order to drive from Buffalo, NY, to visit our neighborhood. They were going to make the trip in two days, but didn't leave on the day they had hoped due to my friend Amy's nasty fever. They ended up leaving the next day and pushing through 15 hours in one day in order to beat the snow that was predicted to start Sunday morning.

We were so honored that they took on such a long trip just to come visit.

The family moved away 3 years ago and when you're only 5 years old, that's more than half a lifetime. So we weren't surprised when both our girls were alternately excited and anxious about the visit.

Lindsey and Jamie are both 2nd graders, only weeks apart in age. Even though it had been 3 years since they'd seen each other, we figured they would get re-acquainted in relatively short time. I believe it took 10 minutes.

Jamie and Lindsey, Dec 2007.

Watching TV together, February 2011.

The biggest changes had to be with their youngest, Molly, who was just 18 months old when they moved away. She was barely talking last time we saw her, and now she is 4, a pre-schooler. Since she is a year younger than Marissa, we figured they would become fast playmates, if they remembered each other.

January 2008 - the last time Molly and Marissa saw each other.

Marissa gave Molly a good-bye kiss.

We had nothing to worry about, apparently.

For Wayne and I it was seeing old friends -- for our girls, it was making new friends of old ones.

What a wonderful way to spend a snowy, wintry weekend.