Everyone needs some time away every now and again...whether it's for catching up with loved ones, visiting places unseen, or simply nursing one's own mental health.  This weekend I will be doing all three of those.

This month marks the 10 year anniversary of being best friends with Meredith.  Ten years actually seems really short to me now that I really think about it.  I feel like I've known her my whole entire life.  I can't imagine what I possibly did to entertain myself in my pre-Meredith state.  I supposed that was back in the day when my sister and I were each others' sole source of entertainment between homeschool classes and church events.  Now, I love my sister dearly and still consider her a best friend...but there's just something different about the bond between my Mere and me.  I feel as though the relationship we have is different in a way from any other friendship I've observed or experienced.  She truly is like my female soulmate (nobody take that the wrong way!).  Haha...she's my bosom buddy and my best friend.

I still remember the first day I met her like it was yesterday.  My family and I had just moved back to CO after a 6 year period traveling around other states with the military.  I was nervous about going back to my old church because I didn't think anyone would remember me or want to be my friend....I actually remember the summer before we moved I was sitting on my grandma's couch just begging my mom to pick a different church for us so I could feel like I was starting fresh with new faces and friends.  She and Dad made the decision to check it out anyway, so we showed up bright and early our very first Sunday back in CO.  When I say early, I do mean early....I poked around the church basement until I found the 7th-8th grade classroom and sat alone in the dark for a good 30 minutes before the first person showed up.  Betcha can't guess who that person was!  Meredith walked through the door, flipped on the light and said in an unimpressed tone, "What are you doing??  You could at least turn the light on!".  And that was the beginning of our wonderful story.  The next few months we got to know each other by sitting together in sunday school and hanging out at each other's house every now and again (although, I'm pretty sure her mom forced her to invite me over).  Things got serious when she invited me over for an actual sleepover!  Now, that's commitment.  Haha...from then on, we enjoyed the typical teenage-ish activities like tricking our parents into driving us to the mall to "people watch", staying up watching movies till the wee hours of the morning at each others' houses, and bouncing ideas and thoughts off of each other no matter how strange or stupid.  One of my favorite conversations we had was outside in her backyard during a sleepover.  We were laying on the trampoline looking at the stars and she turned to ask me what I thought my future husband would be like.  We stayed out there for forever just laughing and dreaming up qualities for our future mates.  We've also had the most incredible adventures together!  (okay so they weren't that exciting...but together, we made them great!)  We spent countless hours trying to talk our parents into letting us go on road trips together.  We finally talked them into letting us go a few hours out of town for the weekend to "practice" for a bigger road trip Spring break!  We've got videos from South Fork and San Antonio to document the excitements of our excursions.  Those were good times.

Now that we've both sort of grown up (if that's what you call this) and started our careers and adult lives, I love that we're still just as close as we've ever been.  The few years she moved outta town to go to college were what I'd call the "dark ages" of our friendship.  Sure, she came home every weekend, but it was still hard to know I couldn't just go drop in at her house whenever I wanted or call her up to go see a movie any random night of the week.  Now she's back and my life is bright again!  Every Wednesday we make it a point to spend the evening together having "us" time.  We'll go shopping and run errands together, go out to dinner and a movie, stay in and play with my sweet puppy....basically, it's a date night. 

Now here we are at our 10th anniversary.  What better way to celebrate than to take a mini roadtrip outta town and spend the weekend relaxing and exploring the big city!  We've got a 4-star hotel to stay at and a list of activities to keep us occupied!  All that's left is the road trip sound track I'm supposed to be making.  Better get on that....*now where's my bieber cd...*

- Megan