With Friends Like These...

Most people know that Cortney and I pretty much grew up together. We became super great friends in high school because we hung out with the same group of people since about middle school. The great thing about this group is that they are OUR friends--neither of us "inherited" the friend group when we were married--not that we don't also love those friends an awful lot--but it's a pretty special thing to have the same group for so long--together. We still consider those people (and their spouses) our best friends in the whole world--even though almost all of them live somewhere other than Michigan.

Usually, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July are the two times a year we are guaranteed to see our favorite people. This Thanksgiving, however, it just didn't work out. Everyone just keeps getting farther away and either flights don't work out, people have new jobs and can't get time off, or something else comes up. We became painfully aware this year how very badly we miss our friends.

Soooooo...since I have been thinking about them all a LOT lately, I thought I would do this little tribute to them....

These are friends who we celebrate the big things in life like graduating from high school...

they come to our openhouses...

they make slurpee runs with us....

they do silly school projects with us....

they have been our tailgate group for many, MANY football games at MSU....

and WMU....

lots of tailgating...

we've helped each other through big stuff like moving to college for the first time...
and we've celebrated all the fun in our lives together, like birthdays...

art shows...

Christmases...

and weddings...

we do a LOT of eating together...

and we celebrate life-changing stuff like new babies...

even if Cort and I are the only ones changing our lives with babies...

they all still help us rejoice...


they come to visit us...


and we go their way whether it's to NY...

or to Chicago...


and once in a while, we are known to really show each other just how much we love each other....

Yes, these are our best friends in the whole dang world. They are all over the US map: Montana, Colorado, South Carolina, and Illinois, and we miss them so much. Most people get to see their long-time friends on a fairly regular basis. Our situation is so different. While we get to enjoy a few of them who still live in Michigan, I know we ALL miss the ones who we see so little of. Sometimes I get downright sad that Eddie won't get to enjoy the most important people in our lives all the time. That he won't regularly get to hear the laughter and the crazy stuff that happens when we are all together.

The great thing is, however, that we get to travel to new places to visit them AND that when we DO see them, it's like all the time and distance never existed and we go right back to where we left off.

And that is why these crazy people will ALWAYS be the best friends of Sluiter Nation!