Weekend of adventures

**Long blog post warning.**

"You can always tell when people are best friends because they are having more fun than it makes sense for them to be having."

That's pretty much what happens when Tirzah and I get together with Abigail, Isarai, and Shoshannah.  We can often be found laughing, even when there's seemingly nothing to laugh about.  

When driver's licenses became part of the story for the 5 of us, we discovered that we can now spend special weekends being crazy as "just us."  

March 2015: We have our first-ever weekend as only the 5 of us.  We have a photo shoot because we begin to realize that pictures of us together over all the years we've been friends are lacking.  It's easy to decide that this must happen more often.

February 2016: Our families get together, but we decide to attempt a photo shoot anyway.  We try to coordinate clothes, but the various shades didn't quite work. 

October 2016: Only our second time to have a weekend to ourselves.  By the time we get to the photo shoot, our time is limited and we throw a few pictures together.  

With our last weekend being way back in October, it was time to put another weekend together into history.  Way back in February, when our schedules were looking hopelessly busy, we reserved a weekend in May of 2017...but that seemed like a long time to wait.  However, time passed just as it always does and we finally got to enjoyed our long-awaited time together.

Thrown-together meals, games at all hours of the day and night, listening to The Piano Guys, and a designated photo shoot.  This is what our weekends usually consisted of.  ("Usually" being twice before!)  It was time to change things up...so we took a day out on the town to see what we might see.  Besides, it was Abigail's birthday and a celebration was in order.  Here's some of what we saw:

We heard tell of a Hobbit house along the canal, so we went to find it.  Although it was a cute little place, it was a bit disappointing.  A very small room inside made the outside the only part really worth seeing.  But Bilbo's green door was still missing.  Nevertheless, we took several pictures with it because going to New Zealand was out of the budget.

We're a bit big to be mistaken for Hobbits.

Inside there was just enough room for the camera and us.

After we'd completed our lengthy photo routine and decided to let other people have a turn, we set off for the state park for lunch. As we bounced along the road in search of this park, we passed by a farm with horses--the expected occupants.  But then, there in the corner, was a CAMEL!  (With 2 humps, no less.)  And he was just quietly eating grass as if he belonged there and not in the Sahara Desert.  Tirzah and I had never seen a camel in real life before, and he was far more charming than I had imagined a camel could be.  We couldn't resist stopping and taking a few pictures, but we did resist asking if we could take a ride....or just adopt him.  By the time we left, he had been dubbed "Humphrey," and he was the cutest Humphrey I'd ever met.

I suppose this is his "royal" pose that he puts on for visitors such as ourselves.

We eventually parted with Humphrey and continued on our way for lunch at the park.  This park, which we'd never been to before, was so entirely relaxing. The mint Oreos had a great effect on all of us, too.

Yay for the quiet perfection of the canal.

This is what it looks like when we jump too soon for the timer.

Until this moment, we'd never realized that Isarai and Tirzah have nearly identical hair color!

This super cool building had exactly 5 openings.  I think it was actually built for us.

No doubt our attempt to be gargoyles was amusing to others at the park. 

The pictures from these arches are actually my favorite from the whole weekend.

Meeting Humphrey and spending some calming time at the park made for quite a satisfying day.  But that wasn't the end yet.  We had one final stop before making the drive home again.  Bowling.  It was an activity the 5 of us had never done together before and we each had little experience at the sport.  We actually did pretty well, as long as we didn't compare ourselves to the guy a few alleys down.

Doing something completely different from the normal "routine" was really fun, and we got many great pictures.  But back at home, we still had to go on with the traditional photo shoot...

Well, actually the next 3 are not part of the tradition at all.  At first it seemed like we were trying to re-live our childhood, but now we look more like a gang.  And I think we pulled it off quite nicely.

"We are more than friends.  We're like a really small gang."

I'm sure you wouldn't want to encounter this super punk homeschool gang.  We're out to set new trends for our generation.

We can be slightly more normal if we try:

Staring into the sun is a painful experience, but apparently good for laughs.

Our balloon floating pictures were kind of a failure...

So we retired and just drew things instead.  It was slightly more successful.

God picked these friends out for me even before I wanted them as friends.  It's a rare and wonderful thing to have the same close friends for 11 years, and I am so thankful they are the ones who have been with me for the many ups and downs of life.  Here's to 11 dozen more years!

(Who do you think has aged the most since our first photo shoot two years ago?)

"It seems that they always had been, and always would be, FRIENDS.  

Time could change much, but not that."  

--Winnie the Pooh