April 29th, 2019

Quite a while ago I wrote about our friends, the Minock family, from Colorado.  They had come for a visit and it was a blog topic.  Part of the point of that particular post was just how much fun we had visiting with them again, but the bigger part was how there are just some people who come into your life that are important.  They aren't just friends, they become family.

It's kind of inexplicable.  I mean, why it happens, how it happens.  I refer to it as the Giant Click.  It happens when you meet someone that you instantly connect with.    And in this particular case, it happened all the way around.  She and I became best friends almost within seconds of meeting for the very first time and Tim and the mister became good friends nearly as fast. But the coolest thing, the most unusual things is that the four of us together works.  And it works as if it were designed to be that way.  

We have missed them.  We have met some wonderful people here too, please don't misunderstand me. We make friends everywhere we go :)   And there were a lot of wonderful people that we met in Colorado that we miss.  It's probably the thing about Colorado that we miss the most...the people!  And we are lucky enough to have some very good friends in our lives.  But you really can only have one best friend.   And these were them.  

Since Tim and I moved to Florida, we have gone back to Colorado a number of times.  And they have flown out here.  We  texted and emailed regularly, sent pictures and talked on the phone. And while it wasn't a perfect world kind of thing, it wasn't bad for a long - distance friendship. It was working.  And we assumed that was just how it was going to be.  Taking turns flying back and forth across the country and electronic communication. It's better than nothing.

And then, one day, they surprised us!  They also decided to move to Florida.  In fact, they recently shared with us that the idea of Florida had long been on their radar as a maybe someday kind of thing. But it was the success of our move that inspired them to not wait.  To go ahead and make the move now!  Well yahoo!!!!  Ok, we were officially excited.  

Of course a big move like that doesn't happen instantaneously, but it did happen.  They sold their house, packed up their gear and now they live in the Sunshine State!  Woohoo!!  Naturally we were tickled to bits.  And not just because we are selfish creeps who wanted our friends closer to us. (though that part is totally true)  But also because this was something they wanted to do and they did it!

They chose a town about two hours north of us. It's charming and rural and small town-y with gorgeous mature growth trees and big spaces between houses.  A nice bonus - it's close to  few of her relatives.  It's always extra nice to have family nearby.

So they arrived nearly a month ago now. And even though we were champing at the bit to see them, we waited until they were semi-settled into their temporary digs. But yesterday, we got to see them again.

Tim and I decided that we needed to bring a Welcome to Florida basket of goodies with us.  And you know, normal people would bring flowers or fruit. Or maybe something practical like swim goggles and sunscreen. But Tim and I are not normal people.  And lucky for us, our friends not only get that, but they like that :)

We had the BEST time selecting items for the basket which was actually a large plastic sandpail and shovel.  Things like Sam made cookies (or course) and sparkly gaudy garish insulated drink cups, and a hand-held battery powered fan, and a Mickey Mouse coloring book and a jigsaw puzzle of dogs wearing sunglasses at the beach and a kitchen towel with a flamingo on it and, and...well stuff like that.

As much fun as we had putting the basket together, I think they had an equal amount of fun discovering the goodies inside.  Perfect.  We sat out on their lanai under the ceiling fan by the pool and talked for hours, catching up on each other's lives.

We got to see their new property and envision the house that will ultimately be there.  We drove around and saw part of their new town.  We had a really amazing home cooked food. (and were sent home with goodies)  And then we all  talked and laughed some more.  

Eventually though, we had to make the drive back home. Booooo.  But we've decided that we can visited back and forth at least once a month!!  So May is right around the corner and now we can look forward to that!

Old friends, best friends just two hours away. Yeah, life is good ;)