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| 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.
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| Cara and Sara |
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| Andrea and Maria |
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| Our fancy house on the mountain. |
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| Sara and Maria |
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| We kept seeing these four ladies around town. They made us laugh because this will be us in about thirty more years! |
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| This is Maria dancing to the music in the candy store we visited. |
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| The girls are waiting inside of the tatoo and piercing parlor that we visited. |
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| Sara is getting her upper ear pierced. Cara did the same thing, but I didn't get a picture of her. |
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| My beautiful, sweet Maria. |
My sissies. The family ties between us are made of so much more than mere genetics!
