Nichole & I have been friends since we were 15 (22 years ago), we went to church together, school together, had many sleepovers and so many other fun times, she was like part of the family. When I got married 8 years ago and moved away from all of my family and friends, I also left her & her family behind. We had talked about raising our kids together and being able to talk about married life and just continue to be really close. Her kids even refer to me as their aunt and I never had any kids of my own, which at first really disappointed Nichole. Now that I live 7-8 hours away our times we get to see each other and talk are so very few.
For the last 8 years that I've been away her and her family have come up to visit 7 of those years; there were even a couple of years that she brought her girls up and they stayed for spring break. I love these times together because I get to devote my time to her and not split it with visiting my family when I go home. In the last few years, our husbands have had a chance to get to know each other and enjoy fishing together when they come up.
This year they came up but left all the kids back at home with their grandparents because they were also participating in their first tri-athalon. They both did really well considering it was their first and are excited to do more. It was something they had decided they could do together, both would enjoy and stay healthy in the process.
After their tri-athalon we decided to go up on the Coeur d' Alene River so the guys could fish. Initially, Nichole had mentioned us doing something fun and letting the guys go fish but we weren't really interested in shopping or a movie and didn't know what else to do so I suggested we just take some games and pack a cooler with sandwiches, fruit and drinks and go up with the guys. While they spent their time fishing we could play games (something Nichole & I have done SO MANY years in the past, since she is my fellow competitive game player friend). We enjoyed ourselves, just relaxing by the river and spending time catching up.
The only bad thing about our weekend was after taking a picture of Nichole along the river, I dropped her camera and we couldn't get her lens to retract, it was stuck and wouldn't take any pictures. I felt HORRIBLE but she tried to console me and tell me it was okay it could have happened to anyone. I knew the next day when they were planning on leaving they were going to go on the Hiawatha Trail with their bikes and wouldn't have a camera to take pictures so I sent my back-up camera, battery, charger, etc... with her so she could still get pictures. While they were on the trail after taking some shots somehow my camera came out of their backpack and fell and they didn't notice it until they got to another place to take a picture. Once they got off the trail they checked in to see if anyone had reported finding a camera and it was turned in but it wouldn't work, so she felt bad too. When she called to tell me about it, I just laughed because it helped ease some of my anxiety about breaking hers, and she expressed that she now knew how I felt.
Here are a few pictures from that weekend:
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