How Did We Meet?

Last night I went out to dinner and a movie with my friends Paige and Melinda. These two are from my group of friends from high school... I call them my Murray Girls. Baugh+Heather+Shantel+Keshia+Angela+Melinda+Staci+Leah+Paige+Sarah=Murray Girls but really... anyone was and is welcome in our group... they are just the first ones to come to mind when I say Murray Girls, they are my original Murray Girls... ANWAYS (background info time over... back to our blog post) as we were eating Melinda and Paige started teasing each other and asking... "how did we ever become friends?" It made us think and laugh as we reminisced about how we met each other and how we came to meet other people as well.

It really is fascinating how we meet people in our lives. Sometimes it is a specific event, a casual or formal introduction, a friend of a friend... other times there are those people who just became a part of your life without you even realizing it; their specific introduction in your life is blurry. You know there was a time that they weren't there but how it began is a mystery. And the length of time people are in your life is fascinating. Some people are there to stick for life, while others only needed to play a small part in your life.

Well I reminisced about how I met certain people in my life. You should do the same thing; it brings up some fun memories and some good laughs. Here are a few of the many that I reminisced about:

Melinda: I met Melinda in Mrs. Call's 3rd grade class. That is the first time I knew of her existence. She had lived in Murray much longer before that, but that was when I first met Melinda and what a blessing it is to have her in my life. She is my adventurous, carefree friend who makes life fun.

Paige: I don't remember a particular event or place of meeting. She wasn't there and then she was. I had seen her a few times growing up because we were in the same stake but her ward was in the boundaries for a different elementary so I believe it wasn't until Jr High that we officially spoke to each other. We didn't really start hanging out until our Senior year of high school. But Paige was someone, starting in Jr High, I liked to sit by in classes. Paige is one of those loyal, genuine and kind people who truly cares about everyone around her and I always felt safe by her.

Kelcie: I met Kelcie when I was three or four. She was new to our neighborhood. Her mom came over to our old house on Vine to drop something off. Her mom mentioned having a daughter my age out in the car, so I ran out to see her. She was in the back seat of a yellow car with her litter sister. I ran up to the halfway rolled down window and said, "HI! I'M AMY! I'm YOUR AGE!" She stared back at me with her big frightened wide-eyes that were peering out from behind her donald duck magnifying eye-glasses. If you have seen the movie, UP, pretty much the beginning when the boy and the little girl meet each other was a reenactment of Kelcie and my's first meeting. She later became my childhood best friend. Today she is still one of those friends where we can go months without calling each other and then when we do it is as if we haven't missed a day.

Chad: I met Chad over winter break my junior year at college. We were both home alone because we stayed an extra week for work. He lived below me and heard me moving around upstairs. The first time he rang my door bell I pretended not to be home, the next day I answered the door when he knocked and he invited me over for ice cream but I came up with an excuse not to have some but the third day I agreed to ice cream and we also made cookies for people who lived by us. Then we both took off for winter break. When school started again, Chad came over for fashion advice on an outfit; we were all sold on his awesomeness. After that he became an apartment favorite and a best friend. I can't believe I was a turd in the beginning!

Andrew: I have always said, "Andrew is my diaper days friend, I've known him since the diaper days." In all honesty, I'm pretty sure we met after the diaper days, his beginning is hazy too, but I know, besides family, he as been apart of my life the longest. Some of my fondest memories are with Andrew: playing Peter Pan in his backyard, begging our parents not to makes us go to pre-school (we had the world's scariest teacher our first year), watching him play basketball in high school, texting in college, and a lot more in between.

Sarah: After a high school basketball game my sophomore year my friend Slivka said, "Wanna go to Sarah Miller's birthday party?" I didn't even know who Sarah was but I thought, eh, why not! The next thing I knew Slivka had a group of people in my white astro van and we were on our way to Sarah's house. That car ride was epic! We were blasting Bare Naked Ladies on my CD player and being typical silly teenage girls. I was having so much fun with my bus load of people that I turned a corner so fast that we all swear to this day that the van went up on two wheels as it tipped to the left. We arrived to Sarah's party and I went quickly from being the "who's that" girl to the "awesome/crazy van driver" girl. Sarah is now one of my Murray Girls. (pretty much that story has nothing to do with Sarah except that those were the events that lead to meeting her)

Larry: Larry was good friends with my roommate, of 2 and half school years, Mel. I came home after a date on halloween and I was STARVING! Larry was sitting at the kitchen table talking with Mel and I walked in and said, "Hey guys! Wait who are you?!" Larry said, "Hi, I'm Larry." I replied, "Hi Larry! Now you guys get back to talking I've got massive amounts of food to consume because my date picked me up at 5:30, fed me hot chocolate and now it's 11:30 and I'm shaking like an excited toddler on Christmas Eve except that mine is from lack of food!" This then lead to a lot of funny stories about dating. Larry and I later worked together on the A-Team at school but he was always "Larry, Mel's Friend" and I was always "Amy, Mel's Roommate." He is now one of my besties and we laugh that we once, long ago, considered each other acquaintances through another person. When the switched happened... we're unsure.

Emily: My first and dearest dance friend, the funny thing is... we were enemies first... but to this day we don't know why. We were in Miss Deborah's dance class but pretty much unaware of each other. We were first graders, we were just happy to skip and leap around the room. We later tried out for CDT, made it into the company and thus began our lives together and awareness of each other. Our mom's set up a carpool; we started out as enemies (life's greatest mystery) and then became great friends... the rest is a great history