My oldest and dearest family friend, JR, got married last weekend.  JR, his two brothers, my sister and I grew up together.  We spent countless summer days at the lake throwing squeeze-it bottles at each other (No, not squeezing the water out of them like squirt guns.  Throwing them.  Full of water.  At each other.), playing Dukes of Hazard in the basement and collecting ten plus pound bags of candy every Halloween until college (I’m almost serious – young face + free candy, hello?!).  We’re family.  Being the two oldest of the five, we kind of ruled.  Seeing him get married and re-connecting all of us (three in Spokane, one in LA and me in Seattle) was just like old times.

We had a blast.  Instead of throwing squeeze-it bottles, it was a bouquet – and yeah, I caught the sh$t out of it! (It actually got deflected, bounced off my face and I picked it up off the floor but who’s asking?)  Instead of Dukes of Hazard, we danced.  All night long.  Even my sister and parents were dancing – NEVER thought that would happen! And instead of pounds of candy, they get lots of presents and we were all dressed to the nines!

It’s crazy, getting older.  I love thinking back to all of the great times we had as kids and all the memories we shared with the Sugalski’s.  It makes me excited to have my own family and forcing our kids to be “instant” friends with our friends kids.  They’ll thank me later, I’m sure.  We’ll see if that whole bouquet catching tradition really works!  (Are you reading this Kevin?!)