Family Ties



My sisters and me.

A few weeks ago, I joined my sisters for our annual "Sissy Weekend."  These girls aren't sisters by blood, but they certainly are sisters-in-heart.  Sara and I were suitemates during our freshman year at Harding.  I played softball with Cara during that same year.  For our sophomore year, Sara and I were roommates and Cara was our suitemate.  Sometime during our sophomore year, I looked up and discovered this girl named Maria hanging out in my room.  She was from Philly and had this crazy accent.  We adopted her and soon-thereafter she moved into our suite.  My life would not be the same without these three friends.

Cara married Kent Jobe (a boy I dated once or twice at Harding).  Kent is a preacher at a church in El Dorado, Arkansas.  Cara is an elementary school teacher.  They have three gorgeous children.  Derek is the same age as my Zach.  Austin is a couple years younger, and Brylee is their baby sister.  The Jobes are scholar-athletes, and all of the kids are very active in sports while also being super smart.

Sara married Jim Miller (a boy Cara dated once or twice at Harding).  Jim is a professor at Harding.  Sara is a part-time professor there as well.  They have two beautiful children.  Laura, a pretty little girl who loves to dance, is the same age as my Alec.  Grant is three and is all-boy.  Sara and Jim and the kids will be taking a Harding University group to Italy in the spring (Hellooooo. Jealous.).  Sara will teach and will also homeschool Laura while they are there.  I would LOVE to join them for that semester, but alas, I have the much more glamorous job at Southwest Tennesee Community College.

Maria was a year behind us at Harding, so she graduated a year later.  She moved to Dallas and had her beautiful heart broken, but was lucky enough to get a super-dooper cute kiddo out of the deal.  Her Aidan is finishing up preschool and will be a big kindergartener next year.  Maria is by-far the most glamorous of all of us, and we love to make fun of her for being such a Dallas girl.  Maria lost her mother to cancer about a year before I lost mine to Alzheimers.  We share that loss and our intense love and worry for our fathers.

For this year's trip, we met in Branson and stayed in a beautiful rental home for a nice, long weekend.  This was our first non-hotel weekend, and I think we all loved having our own bedrooms and bathrooms.  We ate, shopped, primped, ate, shopped, laughed.  We share about 18 years of memories, which makes me feel just a tad old.  It is fascinating to me how we can pick up right where we left off, no matter how long it has been between visits. 


Cara and Sara

Andrea and Maria

Our fancy house on the mountain.

Sara and Maria

We kept seeing these four ladies around town.  They made us laugh because this will be us in about thirty more years!

This is Maria dancing to the music in the candy store we visited.

The girls are waiting inside of the tatoo and piercing parlor that we visited.

Sara is getting her upper ear pierced.  Cara did the same thing, but I didn't get a picture of her.

My beautiful, sweet Maria.

My sissies.  The family ties between us are made of so much more than mere genetics!