This time of year I always get a little nostalgic.  Summer is coming, students are coming home from college and high school students are getting ready to graduate.  This time of year, even though I’m now far removed from school, always feels the same.  Even though I don’t get summers off anymore, it just feels like summer!  And I love it.  I love the warmer weather, I love running into students at church who are home for the summer, I love the excitement of the high school students as they have many “lasts” before heading off to college.

This year though, marks 10 years since my class graduated from Clemson.  Yes, I just aged myself.  It was crazy enough when it had been 10 years since high school, but really…??  10 years since college??  Well, not for me really because I was on the five and a half year plan :-)  But that’s another story for another day.  The bottom line is that when I started school in 1998, four years later it was 2002 and the majority of people I started school with were graduating.  So, to celebrate that, the girls that I shared a freshman bible study with decided we should celebrate.  So, we reserved a couple of rooms at the James F. Martin Inn just off of campus, went to Tiger Town Tavern for dinner, had a combined baby shower for three of the girls, stayed up way too late talking, then got up to go to lunch and wander around downtown Clemson.  It was nothing short of perfection.

These girls mean the world to me.  I met them freshman year when I realized I was making friends with too many guys (sort of a byproduct of being in engineering) and began praying for a solid group of godly girls.  I had no idea how far above and beyond God would answer that prayer.  We just clicked.  We were all roommates the following years – in some combination or another – we’ve been in each other’s weddings, we’ve held each other’s babies, and each year we get together with the husbands and some of those babies in the mountains or at the beach.  These girls have carried me through some rough times, they’ve made me laugh more than I’ll ever be able to describe, they’ve held me accountable when it wasn’t easy to, and they’ve been there to lend strength when I couldn’t do it on my own.  To say that I love them seems like a grand understatement.

My prayer for my high school girls that are graduating next week (I’ve already shed a few bittersweet tears over this!!), is that they find a group of friends like I did; that they are able to find girls that will hold them up, carry them through, laugh with them, cry with them, listen to them and come to them when they need a shoulder to cry on.

The funny thing is that I didn’t want to go to Clemson at all.  In fact, it was my last choice of where to go!  At the time, it was my “fall back plan”, but now, I don’t think I’d have a prayer of being accepted!  Luckily for me, God’s plans are always far better than my own.

I’m so excited about these babies… we realized that with Jennifer having a girl and Kristen having a boy, we’ll have 5 of each in our group. Allison will be the tie breaker :-)
AND, we also realized that 6 of these babies will all be within a couple of years of each other and will be at Clemson together.  heehee :-)

Happy Monday!