my b.f.f. jill

literally.

let me briefly tell you about my jill.

we played softball together when we were in elementary. jill was getting ready to come to pillow from bankston and we became fast friends.

jill's family took me in as another daughter. literally, people commented that if you saw one of us, you would see the other.

i got to go to my first mississippi state football game with her family. it was SO much fun! several years later, we would drive up and stay with roseann and go to football games "on our own". such sweet memories!

our first dates, me teaching jill how to drive, going to dances together, weddings, children. we have been through so so much - it would take longer than i have to write about our friendship.

our friendship is truly one of those that comes along once in a lifetime. we've gone through times when we don't get to talk or see each other much and times when we've talked almost daily.

but rest assured that each time we get on the phone, it's just the same old jill and same old me. we pick up where we left off and we go forward.

she has been there for me through some of the hardest times of my life and some of the best. i can't imagine my life without her. she is a constant - and never changes.

gosh - there are so many stories - but since i have these pictures (or pictures of pictures), i'll talk about this briefly.

when we graduated high school, jill went to delta state and i went to mississippi delta community college. when we would go out, we always went to cleveland. i thought that our friendship had ended - and quite honestly i was a little depressed over it. jill had gone to a larger university and was now in a sorority - had made new friends - and i felt like i didn't fit in anymore.

i remember one night laying in my bed (top bunk!) crying to jill on the phone about how i felt like our friendship was gone. we talked and decided that we were both going to be going through changes, but that our friendship would evolve and change through it.

jill graduated with her bachelor's from delta state in 3 years. i took the 4 year college route - 2 years to m.d.c.c. and 2 years to UMC. after her graduation from delta state (and right before my senior year at UMC), we decided that we would go on a cruise - just the 2 of us.

we had an incredible time. way more stories than i could put here JUST from this trip! here are 2 of the pictures...our fun trip - just us - in 1999...



so fast forward 9 years. yes, 9 years. SO much has changed. neither of us are with the same "guy" that we were with at that time. and between us there are 3 children.

our sweet girls are about 7 weeks apart. and love each other. mary peyton talks about avery and asks when we will see her. they are so cute when they talk on the phone together. i'd give anything to live in greenwood so that their friendship could grow even more.

and so the circle of life goes. it is so neat to have a daughter the same age as my best friend's daughter. i know that we cannot dictate who our children choose as friends - but i know that we can guide them. and if my verse that i've claimed for my family continues to hold true (see the verse right under my header), then mary peyton and avery will be blessed with a friendship as special as the one that their mamas share. here are a few pictures of our girls - descriptions with each of them...

the first time we got to see avery/they got to see mary peyton. jill, adam, and avery were living in havre, montana. adam is a dentist and he was working with the indian health services - for TWO years. they seemed long at the time (jill got pregnant/avery was born/jill had thyroid cancer), but went by fast, too. mary peyton makes avery look like a shrimp - my child was SO big....





jill and avery were back in mississippi in may 2006 - here's how much the girls had grown!




in february, we had a girls only weekend. well, tommy was here, too (we couldn't kick him out of his own house!). we went to little tokyo, the natural science museum, build-a-bear, mcalister's, and had a book party! it was so much fun! and glance from the pictures above to the picture below. they're growing way too fast!

and i love this next one. there's nothing better than an "all the time" friend.

i thought i was through and about to hit publish, but i decided to put one more up - or maybe 2. these are from when the girls were a few months old and then when they were about a year old. 2 generations of girlfriends. it doesn't get much better.

i love you, jill.