Adventurous Reunion

Yesterday was quite the adventure. Ben had meetings in Idaho Falls, so I decided to go. Two of my friends from other states have since moved to Idaho Falls & Rexburg and I hadn't seen them for YEARS. Well, the drive there was fighting a crazy wind/snow storm. One road got closed and re-routed us through Blackfoot. The day was good...and then when it was time to head home, we looked at this:
Well, not exactly this. I pulled this off the internet this morning, so it is a little different...but basically, you can see all these red circles on every road surrounding Bellevue, Hailey, Ketchum. The one road that doesn't show a red circle, had one last night. There was absolutely no way to get in or out of the Wood River Valley. Every road was closed from drifting snow. At about 8 pm, they finally starting allowing cars to be escorted. They were using 4 snowplows ahead of a pilot car to escort cars from Shoshone to Bellevue and then out from Bellevue to Shoshone. When we finally got through, you could tell the drifts had to have been 6-7' high. But...we made it home safely by 12:30 in the morning...and had a great day - despite a drive at least this bad the entire way.
Now to the reason I braved the roads in the first place - FRIENDS!

Marci Inskeep - I became friends with Jeremy & Marci when I moved to Georgia in 2000. They lived in the same apartment complex and Jeremy and I worked for the same company. At the time, they had 1 little boy, Forrest--only about 18 months. He was my special buddy...since I didn't have a boyfriend...this was before Ben. I remember telling Marci one day that I had decided that it just wasn't meant for me to get married anytime soon. God must want me to be alone for while--because there was NO ONE there I could possibly even date. It was the very next Monday that I met Ben. Well...5 kids later for her and 2 for me, they have moved back to their original stomping grounds of Rigby, only 2 hours away.

Here we all are...Colton & Bryce (mine) Phoebe, Forrest, Daphne, Marci, Fisher & Sophie(asleep-not in the picture). Amazing what can happen in 7 years!

Tricia Scott - Tricia and I met through church in Chicago, IL in 2003. She had one little girl, Mikaela - about 2 years old and I was pregnant with Colton. We were only in Chicago 10 months, but have some of the fondest memories and some of the best friends from there. Tricia, Vanessa Pollack and I quickly became the best of friends. They were both such a blessing to me after Colton was born...He was such a HARD baby. Vanessa's ski boat was our morning relief. We'd put the babies in their car seats in the boat (approved flotation devices--that's what we kept telling ourselves) and going skiing for a couple of hours. That boat motor was the only thing that would keep Colton from screaming. As soon as we'd turn it off, he'd start up again. So, now 5 years later and 2 more kids, Tricia now lives only 2 hrs away in Idaho Falls.

I had one more reunion in the last 2 weeks. I received an email from a lady I knew in Tennesee (2000-2003) about an email address change...and the new email address had the word Boise in it. Joel & Linda Lopez were in our ward in TN, they both worked me as a trim subcontractor, too. I helped them design and get a house built for themselves. They are great people--and sure enough, they had moved to Boise and live only a couple minutes from Ben's brother John. All kind of strange that friends of ours from 3 different states have all moved to Idaho and we've seen them all in the last 2 weeks. I wonder why...there has to be a reason. I don't know. But it has been great!