Bells

It is official... Karli has moved to Boise. I wanted to throw them a going away party, but they insisted that I not. Lame. But we did have our last play group party at my mom's house... so that made me feel a little better.

It was fun, we didn't get all the mom's out like we wanted, but the kids had fun. It was a nice, hot summer day, so we turned my mom's hot tub down so it was like a swimming pool, got some water balloons, a slip'n slide, and of course a sprinkler under a tramp.

Thanks to Karli, this play group has gotten me out of MANY-a-ruts, I will miss it - but I am sure we will all get together every time Karli is in town.

And now, for a proper tribute to Karli.

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you will know that I ADORE Karli. We have been friends since we were about 9 - we lived just 31 seconds (from door step to door step) from each other. It is funny how our friendship has evolved over the years. When we were young we were each others best enemies, we loved to hate each other. Karli is SUPER emotional and dramatic, I found this hilarious, and loved to exploit it at every turn. It is one of the things I love about her now, and then too, I guess. I loved to make her cry, and it was so easy. Who knows why she was my friend, because there were definitely years where I tortured her - but it was ALWAYS in good fun (at least I thought so).

When I decided to do this post I went scouring through all my old pictures to find one of me and Karli, and strangely enough, not ONE! I do not have ONE picture of me and Karli together until we are about 15 - and even then I had to crop it to us and cut some people out of the picture. (Any one from elementary reading this, if you have one of me and Kar, let me know).

And it is not even a good picture. Anyways, we were good friends in junior high, I stopped trying to make her mad, for the most part. We wrote for the school newspaper together and did the broad cast journalism stuff. Karli is passionated about everything she does, some people would see her passion as a little... crazy, but I always found it endearing, and a little fun. She could fly off the handle over anything, I loved it. I loved just hanging out at her house, looking back I am not sure why, her house was crazy (just like mine), she has 5 younger siblings - but I have fond memories of hanging out at her house until I HAD to go home. During these years we did a lot of scrapbooking and ate a lot of cookies n cream ice cream with milk and watched some good'ol Dawson's Creek.

Then in High School we both decided to get "serious" boyfriends (I married mine). That put an end to our fighting and really brought us closer together. We went to EFY together and, as most people who have serious high school boy friends know, we were pretty much each others only consistent girl friend. We were totally there for each other in all the ups and downs of each others relationships. Even to this day, she is the only one I trust talking to about mine and Jason's relationship, because I know she gets us and she knows the whole story.

Then she got married. When she met Skyler is when Karli and I got the closest, which is weird because Skyler totally calmed her down, and her feistiness was my favorite thing about her. Skyler is perfect for Karli, and one of the best men I have ever met (other than mine of course). The best part about mine and Karli's friendship is that it works on all fronts, Sky and I get along great, Karli and Jason obviously know and like each other, and Jason and Sky are good friends and can talk about anything. Karli did everything about a year before me (college, marriage, kids, home ownership), and I have taken her example at every step.

In my mind Karli is the perfect wife, mother, visiting teacher, what ever calling she is, and friend. She really is a daily inspiration to me and I can honestly say that I am nervous about my life now that I don't have her as a daily example. Seriously, probably 80% of the "good things" I do in my life is some how related to Karli (even if I do it just because I know that is what Karli would do). Karli and Sky have always been there for me (especially in those "early years"), I think my life would be a lot different if it wasn't for their friendship or example. If you ever want to see an example of a marriage that is going to do great things for the Lord - watch theirs.

This is a nasty picture of us taken in St. George - this is the ONLY picture we have taken together since the one at her wedding.. we have had babies together, gone on trips together, everything, and never once took a picture. We both scrapbook, so you would think...we are pathetic.

So we took this one at our playgroup before she left...

Our friendship aside, my kids love her kids. Brock and Payton have almost always gotten along great (except for about a 6 month window). They actually play together perfect now... they have only been seeing each other about 2 times a month for the past 6 -9 months or so (due to Karli's baby, my moving, and my baby) - but Payton is definitely Brock's favorite friend.

Here is their first picture together, taken in October of 2007.

And here they are in July of 2010.

I was looking foreword to becoming "everyday friends again" now that both our lives were starting to calm down (well until one of us gets pregnant again), and then she decides to up and move. Lame.

Now I know I am talking like they have died or moved to China, and I know I am probably going to see her 3 or 4 times a year and in this day-and-age of text, blogs, and email, we could potentially not skip a beat. I just wanted to document our friendship and express how much she means to me. Thanks for listening.