A Weekend With Friends

We met the Segalla's almost 4 years ago in Hawaii.  Andy worked with Jake at Pearl Harbor and they'd get together and play raquetball during lunch or after work.  He would often tell me how much he liked them and then say that we needed to have them over for dinner.

Only we didn't.

Not for at least 6 months.

Julie and I had met once; at Hooters of all places, for a going-away party.  We were both pregnant with our third child.  Then I was the one who pushed Andy to extend a dinner invitation.

At the end of July we finally got it to work out.  From that point on we rarely missed a weekend spent having dinner and playing games at each other's houses - not even when Jake left for a deployment in November.  Julie just became part of our extended family - or at least that's how I felt.

But then the next July we had to leave Hawaii.

We were pretty bummed about that.  The Segalla's were in Hawaii for 2 more years after we moved to Mississippi for Andy's Seabee tour.

This past summer after we moved to Virginia the stars aligned and our friends got a grad school tour at Virginia Tech.  Although we are about 4 hours away from each other, we have been able to get together again for some good visits. 

This weekend they came up to visit and go to the Seabee Ball with us.

My kids were just as excited as Andy and I were.  I'm so glad that the kids can all play together!

They're so much easier to ignore when they're having fun, and then the adults can play...

We each now have another kid, so 8 kids total, which makes for a big mess, and a little crazyness, but a whole lot of fun!  And things haven't changed in almost 4 years - we still like to eat good food and play games.  Now we just have a few more kids under-foot!

The one problem was that Andy had to work a LOT more than he thought he would this weekend - a good chunk of the day in the office on Saturday, and then some at home.

But I guess that's how it goes when you're at an Admiral's beck and call...

I just hope we didn't bore Jake too much.

I had a lot of fun, and we're looking forward to the next visit.

We have to pack the visits in since the Segalla's are leaving us this summer to go to a Seabee tour in Gulfport.

*sniff, sniff*