A Hodge Podge of Friendship and Such

I have so many things to catch up on with you - so many random little bits of information, so if it's all the same to you, I plan to just throw them together in a big post today! :) And since I feel bad ranking them in what could be perceived as an order of importance, I'll go chronologically instead. :) 

* Allllll the way back on April 15th, Ryan and I spoke together at a wedding shower here in town. We did not know the bride or the groom, but one of the shower planners is a friend of mine. She'd heard me at the bridal shower I did last spring and asked if I would come and speak at this one as well. When I found out it was a couples' shower, I asked if Ryan could join me, and she said sure! That experience is what precipitated the I CHOOSE YOU blog series we did for a couple of weeks (first post's link is here if you missed it) and we so appreciated all the kind feedback you sent us! I never did an official post on the shower, though, so here are a couple of pictures from that:

That last picture is with my friend Kari, and I am so grateful for her. I used to work with her mom in my IWU days, and she "set us up" as friends. That's been more years ago than we will pause to count, and Kari has become so so so dear to me over the years!

* Then a little later in the month, my best friend and her husband were in Indiana (they live far away, out of state) for her grandma's 90th birthday party. They decided to spend the night at our house before leaving for home the next day! I am so grateful for our house and the way it allows us to actually house friends from out of town! (Our old house didn't support that so well.) It was fun to spend time with them (and their dogs) and show them our house, which they had only ever seen on the blog! 

* We also had the chance to go out to eat with one of the couples from our small group. (We've been out with a couple of the other couples and want to eventually get to all of them!) These two are newlyweds! In fact, it was their wedding where the photographer took the photos of us that we featured in that one I CHOOSE YOU post. We have really enjoyed getting to know these two and are grateful for the chance to be part of their lives!

* TODAY is also a very special day for our loved ones. First it's my sister's birthday! Happy birthday, Lori! Her life has been very busy lately as she has embraced her new role as Nana to little Caroline. (Aren't they the cutest?) But as crazy busy as she is, I appreciate that she still takes time to text with me and swap stories. This is the sister whose graduation I nearly upended when I was...you know...born. :) Hope she has the happiest day!

* And TODAY is also a very big day for our little four-legged girl. TWELVE years old today, and I bet she has the distinction that no other cat has ever had. We recently renamed her. True story!

Back when I got her, twelve years ago, I named her Braeya. I'd had her for all of (almost literally) five minutes when she got lost in my house and I couldn't find her. She was lost for so long that I honestly thought she'd somehow gotten out of the house, and she was SO tiny, I figured I'd never see her again. It turned out she had just gone into some kind of kitty coma under the washer and didn't come out for hours and hours and hours. I was so relieved and so mad all at the same time that I immediately gave her a middle name. I could tell it was obvious she needed one. So she became Braeya Jo.

Well, this last December, when we were on our Friendtastic Fifth Anniversary Adventure, our neighbor watched her for us. But she misunderstood her name and called her Brailey. We felt bad correcting her, so we just joined her. LOL! And somewhere along the way, we realized we were calling her Brailey ALL THE TIME.

Then, a few weeks ago when our niece and nephews were visiting, Brailey was acting up, and I gave her a stern BRAILEY JO. My niece thought I said Jones and started calling her Brailey Jones. It so cracked us up that we adopted that too.

And that's how it has come to be that as a twelve year old, our Braeya Jo is now Miss Brailey Jones.

So happy birthday, Brailey Jones. We hope turning twelve is fun for you!

Whew! Hope you feel caught up! Happy Friday to you!