#102 - JTB

This post was originally scheduled for later in the year, but #102 conned me into moving her up.  The trade off was that if I moved her up, she has to do the Santa Run with me in Las Vegas.  For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, let me just put it like this.  #102 and I (along with several others) will now be in the Guiness Book of World Records for being a part of the largest groups of racing Santas.  I think there were more than 8000.  It started out to raise money for a charity organization and has grown.  If anyone is interested in learning more, click here.  This is only one of the crazy situations that #102 and I have gotten ourselves into.

She is my sister-in-law by marriage, but she could be my second sister.  When Jeff and I started dating, she was only twelve.

(Bonus points if you can guess who the other people are in the picture.  This was taken at a high school dance Jeff and I went to...Winter Formal)

  I got to watch her tranistion from a little girl, to a fiesty teen, to a wild and crazy college student, to a working woman, and now to a wonderful wife and mother.

This one really makes me giggle, because let me just say in the very nicest way...hmmm...#102 is balance challenged!  There was this time running through the New York ferry terminal that ended with a slide beneath the closing door Indiana Jones style.  There was this time running through some airport with a suitcase...oh wait, that is every time in every airport...lol

  She and I have ESP and many times we will say the same thing at the same time or both pick up the phone to call each other at the exact same time to ask each other the exact same thing.  She has two boys to my three, and I am thrilled that they get along and love each other as much as their moms do.  She has been a huge support system for Jeff and I from the moment we had our first born, and I want to take this opportunity to tell her how much we both appreciate all that she does for us.  But...enough of the mushy stuff and on to the stories!

This picture makes me laugh every time I come across it.  It was when I has corrective eye surgery on one eye (the procedure was so new, they only would do one eye at at time) at the same time she had a cyst removed from her wrist.  Let me just say that me trying to zip her jeans half blind is something we will never forget.

For some reason, we have a lot of our laughs in bathrooms.  I will never forget that time in the Esplanade mall bathroom when the very smelly girl in the stall between us uttered, "Oh girl...I think something bad just happened."  Or the time that I spent more than my fair share of time browsing the isles of the Stop and Rob in Dallas.  I made friends (and we all know how much I love to make friends) with the foreign worker while #102, ahem, let me just say, got real familiar with the girls restroom.  What was that?  45 minutes would you say???

Anyway, she is all about deals and she made me promise not to include her Madonna picture in my blog.  But...she did not say anything about this one.

One of our funniest moments was when Jeff and I took #102 to AstroWorld.  I was in college and #102 came up to visit for the weekend.  Well, we thought it would be fun to head to Houston for the weekend.  We took off with about $25 between us (and my dad's gas card...thanks dad, I love you!) and headed to the big city.  There was a crazy drive through Taco Bell experience that still brings tears of laughter to my eyes whenever we start to talk about it.  There was getting drenched on a water ride as soon as we got there and then having to walk around with wet clothes and shoes for the rest of the weekend.  There was getting lost on the 610 loop and going around the city a few times (thanks again dad for that gas card).  While looping around Houston, we also got peed on , squirted by an elephant who was traveling in the 18-wheeler next to us on the loop.  And then finally on the way home, finding 50 cents beneath our seat at the last gas station, and buying a blueberry muffin and a diet coke that we all three split.

There are many, many, more trips, talks, and fun times, and I hope many more in our future.  She is one of my best friends as well as my sister in law and I truly treasure our friendship.  Enjoy the rest of the blog and remember, I only put pictures of the ones I truly love!

(This was at a New Year's Eve party that we threw in 2006.  She wasn't even drinking, but we let her wear the glasses that said 9006 for most of the night)