An eternal friendship...

With the Shields Family moving to the panhandle I was discussing Spring Break plans with Latisha. They were going to spend the week up there house hunting. That is when the light went on..."I wonder if the condo is rented". I checked with mama and after looking into it, both her and daddy said that I could use it that week. Latisha said that the girls and I could ride with her. Nathan would join us mid week after he got back from a business trip.

Well my week ended with Kaitlyn sick with a flu bug on Thursday and then Taylor tested positive for strep throat on Friday. Bless her heart she always misses school on the fun days. That morning she was suppose to have movie time for doing so well on her accelerated reader tests and then that afternoon her class was going to a local park for lunch and to play. She was so sad and really wanted to go to school.

After a trip to the doctor's office and a wait at the pharmacist we finally headed to Tallahassee that night. Nathan was there on the first of two business trips for Springtime Tallahassee; so we were able to spend the night with him in his hotel. I gave Latisha advance warnings about the contagiousness of my girls to which she replied "it's all in the family". She spent the night with her sister Emily. I must say it was nice to split the trip into two parts especially with both girls not feeling well yet.

The week wasn't filled with the best beach weather. It rained almost all week. Actually the only two days of sun were Monday and Friday. This was the first time I had been to the condo without Nathan in fourteen years. While dating he had come with my family on vacation and then after we married it became our annual vacation spot thanks to my parents. To be quite honest, I didn't like being there without him. Saturday night Latisha and the kids spent the night with Roger at the campgrounds and I really didn't like being in the condo by myself with the girls while the winds howled around us and the waves crashed against the shore. Fortunately they came and kept me company for the next several nights.

The Gulf water was freezing, but that didn't stop the kids from jumping right in on Saturday when we went for a walk on the beach.


Latisha and I thought we were being creative by taking the kids to a children's museum on Wednesday, but wouldn't you know that the sun decided to come out while we were there and when we packed up to go back to the condo to spend some time by the pool the clouds decided to come back out and we froze to death. At least the pool was heated for the kids.


We decided to treat the kids to a night out of miniature golf Wednesday after Nathan arrived. Kaitlyn was a hoot. Each time she would strategically place her ball close to the hole and then when it went in would proclaim "5 again"! She was copying her daddy and big sister who had been shouting to the score keeper (me) each time they finished their turn. My favorite was when she decided that she was going to lie down on the green.


When Nathan came the fun with him. He wasn't too chicken to dive into the frigid water and play with his girls. Oh how we love him! The beach just isn't the same without him there!


I'm thankful for friendships, eternal friendships. There aren't many people that I could and would travel 6 hours in a van full of kids (some of which are sick) and still like them enough to then spend the next week with them and their kids (some of which got sick) in a one bedroom condo. I could actually count the number of people on one hand that I would even be willing to give it a try. Latisha, she is one of those people. We have a lot of things in common, yet we are different in so many other ways. Regardless our friendship has become one of those friendships, an eternal friendship.