Birthday shout-out. . .

I know, as well as all of you know, that I don't blog very often, so when I do it must be for a special occasion - and today it is!

Today is my dear cousin, Deidra's, birthday!

Deidra and I have been very good friends, for a very long time - so long that we knew we could get mad at each other and not talk to one another and still be ok.

I've shared some of my favorite memories with Deid:

-fishing with grandpa

-family reunions

-playing barbies and princesses at my house - and yes, making crowns out of the willow branches!

-sleeping, and practically living, in a tent in her backyard for days, maybe even sometimes weeks

-hoeing beets

-welding in uncle warren's shop - and tumbling

-going to state with uncle troy, playing trivial pursuit the whole way up, and throwing my socks out of his sun roof on the freeway

-volleyball state, drinking outrageous amounts of free choco. milk, laughing because tash's uncle is the funny kid that uncle troy went to school with who ate ham out of his pocket, coach strain dancing michael jackson in the aisles of the bus, etc.

-volleyball in general-locker room moments, seely going bright red and slamming his clipboard, sheri crying, walker yelling at us because we have "no heart," apple trees and their sisters, tiger-grizz camp, etc., etc., etc.

-my first year at school: stealing linda's tv out of her room only to watch the olympics on an 11" screen, cooking grilled pizza on deid's grill that we started by lighting newspaper on fire from the stove-all while my roommate linda is convinced we're going to burn down the apartment, going to bed around 10:30 every night-because that's just what we do, knocking on the wall to make sure deid's awake to go to the sports academy where there are numerous people that we've made-up stories about(snaggle girl being one of them), going to hockey games and seeing how many people we can cram into amber's car, staci winning a tv at b-i-n-g-o night during wow week and deid and whit riding in amber's trunk, our stats class with kimberleigh hadfield-where i studied my butt off and deid read the newspaper and i still got a lower grade, and who could forget working with jka, smelling like manure and feeds-being turned green because of the feeds and deid drawing a beautiful card that depicted jan very well for boss's day, etc.

After this we didn't have as many crazy adventures because she left for D.C. where she met her husband, Chris. This was probably the best thing for me at that time in my life - I finally learned how to do things on my own, to make my own friends and I learned how you don't realize what you have until it's gone. I missed Deid and was happy to have her come home, and I even liked the guy she was marrying-which was a plus for me.

I really enjoyed my past 21 years with my cousin and I hope today is a great day for her!

Love you, Deid!