Monday, January 17, 2011

There are approximately three things I remember from my brief stint as a girl scout...

1.  Selling cookies.

2.  Having the begeezus scared out of me during the one campout I attended by playing Crazy Mary.

3.  Eating s'mores and singing "Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver and the other is gold..." around the campfire.

I never would've thought girl scouts would teach me anything (besides that it's waaay cooler to be a boy scout) but that stupid song does have a valid point.  As we've all gotten older, our lives have carried us on new journeys.  Some here and some far, far away. 

And while the distance can make it easy to give up on maintaining friendships, the reward of doing so is even greater than the investment.

Our hearts have been increasingly full these last few months.  I am so happy that I've been able to connect with many friends that we aren't able to be near regularly.  When we had dinner with the Schwendeners on Saturday, we figured out that it had been almost a year since our last visit together!  But whether you are 40 minutes away or 4000 miles away, please know that we feel very fortunate to have you in our lives.

However, on the flip side, it has also been wonderful to dedicate time to developing new friendships.  The last few months, we have been able to spend several evenings hanging out with different neighbors.  After being in our house for over three years, it's about time!  We have always been close with our neighbors on the (stage) right, but we have recently been spending time with the couple on the left, too.  On Friday we had our first game night with them and really had a great time.  We played Apples to Apples, which is always a little bittersweet without the Talleys, but we will always keep the legacy alive with the Creamed Corn wild card...

We have also found new friends in the people that live across the street and rang in the New Year with our new neighbors across the way.  The funny thing is that we have never spent time with them all at once.  So, our hope is to put together a block party in the near future so that we can all socialize together. 

But there is much to look forward to this year.  I get to see Megan at the end of the month, the Talley's will be in St. Louis in April, Mike and Andi's wedding is in June, and we hope to make another trip up north this summer to visit with Sarah and maybe, hopefully, the Thurstons.  Not to mention all the kids birthdays coming up and the summer months that make it so much easier to get everyone together...

In the meantime, please call, blog, email, fb, or whatever just so we know what everyone is up to these days!  We are very lucky to live in an age where it's so easy to shorten the distances between us...  We hope to hear from you soon!

Love,
Matt, Jen, & Allison

2 comments:

SJT said...

You are right. It seems so much harder to stay in touch even with all the technology we have. Miss you guys.

A.D. Thurston said...

I was in the girl scouts but got kicked out for eating brownies!