a story of friendship

I have mentioned my friend Stacy before (I have a few friends named Stacy actually).  But this Stacy was my first friend. Her Mom knocked on our door when we were just a few years old asking if our family had someone Stacy's age to play with. Stacy and I became best childhood friends. We slept over each others houses all the time, did gymnastics and swimming together.  We had a pool in our backyard and I recall hours and hours of fun.  We used to make up water shows and do tricks on rafts and the diving board. We played house and barbies and school and manhunt and kickball together with the rest of the neighborhood friends. We were grade school cheerleaders together. We were like family.

Stacy and I remained very close friends all through childhood, high school and even college.  In fact, every summer during college, my childhood friends (Michael, Trish and Stacy) and I worked together at Merrill Lynch.  We had a long commute back and forth everyday and some of those carpool drives were the most I have ever laughed in my life!!!  I was so blessed with the most amazing childhood friends.  We all stayed close for so long.  After college, we lived in different states and although we stayed in touch through Christmas cards and occasional phone calls, we definitely drifted.  It was probably my fault as I was the one who moved the farthest away and I rarely went home.  We were all getting married and having kids and it was hard to maintain long distance friendships.  That is something I am not the best at.

Fast forward to this year.  I had not seen Stacy in 15 years.  We visited their family in FL when Will was a toddler.  Here are a few photos from that visit.  Kylie and Will were babies!!!

When I told Stacy we were going to Seaside again this summer, she said she would like to come see us with her girls (who are Will's and Harry's ages).  We share a beach house with my sister and her family and I was not sure how we'd all fit since it was a house we had never rented before but I really wanted to see Stacy.  Will agreed to give up his room for a night so they could stay with us one night.


Stacy and her girls arrived on Wednesday of our vacation and they never left!  Everyone hit it off so well and we had so much fun that they stayed until check out on Saturday!  And we are all so glad they did.  We really had the best time.  And our kids did too.  Will and Kylie became great friends and so did Harry and Kassi.  They still talk and text all the time. In fact, some people might have texted a little too much but I am not going to name names. It was so nice to see our kids become such good friends.  And of course, Kate idolized the beautiful girls!

As soon as they got there our kids acted as if they had been friends all of their lives.  Stacy said it was like her girls had known us all their lives because they did read our blog those years we did not see one another.  Each day, the kids all took off down the beach and stayed out in the ocean for hours!!!

Stacy's girls are so sweet.  I adore them.

We played games and just hung out and laughed.  It was so much fun.

Yes, Harry is holding Dave's Corona;)  He wasn't drinking it.  I promise;)

This was a spontaneous last night walk on the beach.  We did not color coordinate on purpose on anything.  No one even spruced up but they all look so cute together!




We even dragged the kids shopping:)

and to Lilly Pultizer no less!

We really had the BEST time.  In fact, we tried to get one decent photo of the two of us togther but we kept laughing...I treasure these photos even if they are not the most flattering becuase we were having so much fun....

Thank you Dawn for taking them:)

Thank you Stacy and girls (her hubby was away on business so he could not join us) for coming to vacation with us.  We are SO glad you did!!!

So, if you made it this far...the reason I FINALLY got around to posting these fun vacation photos from JULY is that today is Stacy's birthday and I wanted to wish her a

VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!

We all love you all and hope you have a great day and wonderful year.  Stacy is funny and spontaneous and generous and has a huge heart. She is beautiful inside and out. Her girls are just the same.  They were so sweet and polite and helpful and loving.

We hope we get to see you all again very soon.

P.S. Doing this post reminded me that I still never posted a lot of our vacation and I need to still do that!