In March we took a quick trip with the kids down to Northern California to visit some old friends. If you don't know the story of how Brandon and I met let me give you the brief version. Brandon was engaged to my roommate Courtney and we met through her my freshman year at A.P.U. The following year I was the sole survivor of a car accident that took the life of 2 of my 3 roommates at the time, Melanie and Andy. Then 3 months later Courtney, who had moved back to Northern California after freshman year, was diagnosed with a cancer that took her life a short 7 months later. So in a tragic year I'd lost 3 close friends and Brandon had lost his fiance. Also, during this year Melanie's family, who I'd grown very close to, had moved up to Northern California to get a fresh start. So I made trips up to visit them about as often as I made trips home and I would meet up with Brandon while I was there or he would come up to their place after work for dinner. As young 20 year olds there were few people around us who we felt could understand the grief we'd been through and it gave us a special bond which grew over the upcoming years until 5 years later we found ourselves getting married with both Courtney's parents and Melanie's parents in attendance, which meant the world to us.
So when we received an invitation to attend Chuck and Cherie's retirement celebration we were excited to take the trip down. It was a wonderful time to reconnect, as it's been such a long time since we've seen them, and to show them our support as they've always shown us theirs. We also enjoyed reconnect with many others from our past and having the chance to introduce them to our kiddos.
Chuck and Cherie
During our time in the Modesto area we also were able to grab breakfast and spend a little time at the park with the Crocker family. Thomas was in our wedding and we made it up to his but our kids had never meet. So, it was a fun time of again reconnecting with old friends.
I don't remember all the names but boy did we have a crew between us.
Following our time in Modesto we headed back north to El Dorado Hills where Melanie's family lives. Dale and Tina are some of our favorite people to spend time with and over the years they have become more and more special to us as they share a piece of our history that very few others do. Besides our families, very few people we are in contact with knew us before we were married or during these most difficult and life changing years. So for that reason alone, our time with them is always so very precious and this trip was no different.
The kids had so much fun playing with their daughter Jenna and keep asking when we can see her again. She was so sweet entertaining them and teaching them new things. They absolutely love her, as do we, not to mention how nice it was that she was so willing to play giving us a little more time to catch up.
We were sad to say goodbye to these dear friends who are really more like family to us. They bring back so many sweet memories of our early years together and we just can't say enough how thankful we are to have them in our lives.
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