30 Day Challenge - Day 3

Where are the friend pictures?????

My very best friend and me:
My other very best friends and me:
Oh, wait, those would all be in that one coming up called "post a picture of your family."

Ok, so what about all the other friends of my world, the dear friends I've known for as long as I've lived in Lehi, and the others that graced my life in spurts through my growing up years?  Well, it's hard to get a picture of a memory - just doesn't come in digital format, I'm afraid.  Bottom line is I grew up in the DARK AGES - I still can't believe I was so opposed to digital cameras when they first came out (of course, they were grainy and pixely, and nothing to compare with my film camera back then).  As a result, I have very few pictures from my childhood.

Around 1955 - Arnie, David, Ron, Me

Over the years, my very best friends have always been and continue to be my family - immediate, extended, the family I grew up in, my parents and sisters and brothers, my grandparents.  I love our children, it goes without saying, and their spouses and their best friends, too.  And then there's that next generation of grandchildren who have captured my heart and thrown away the key.  I love having my grandchildren friends!

Julie and Brent, Idaho Falls Temple, June 18, 1971

But most of all I consider myself the most fortunate person in the world to be married to my very best friend of all.  So I must post a picture of us together ... let's see if I can find one.  You'd think people as in love with each other as we are would find opportunities to get together in a photograph or two, wouldn't you?  But sadly no.  Even with digital ability, I'm always on the other end of the camera. So here's us on our wedding day.  That works: 

Here is a news clipping of me with all the neighborhood rug rats I grew up with - does this count for this assignment?  The girl on the far left of the back row - Norma Jane - was my "best friend."  They lived right across the street from us on Spruce Avenue.  I have no idea where she is today - actually no idea where any of these people are today.  But we did have a fun group of friends back on that narrow road in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Nancy Colburn - 1963

Lorna Papworth - 1963

We moved to Lewiston the following year, and these two friends made me feel at home immediately.  In Sixth Grade this was the pre-hippy era.  A few years later hem lines went up and hair length went down, eye makeup overtook the face and we joined the era of color and psychedelia.  But in Sixth Grade we were still innocent.  Thanks Nancy and Lorna  for making me feel part of both our neighborhood and our ward (Lorna's dad was our bishop when we lived in Lewiston First Ward).

LouAnn Ames- 1969

Denice Ricks - 1969

Connie Marlatt - 1969

Maureen Francis Stevens - 1971

Best friends changed a lot for me.  We moved so much that I didn't have a chance to maintain contact with former friends, so I moved through them like I moved through the moves.  One year it was Lou Ann Ames, another it was Wendy Parkhouse. There were friends who were good influences (Connie Marlatt and Denice Ricks) and friends who were bad influences.  One fun note:  Connie, who was a great friend in Lewiston, is the aunt of my niece Sylvia Marlatt's husband.  So now we're kind of related!  And it's been fun to renew our friendship again after so many years - and they have been many!

Maureen Francis Stevens - she was another lifesaver when we moved to Wendell at a time of my life when making new friends in a very established small school was vital.  We became better friends even when we went to BYU together, and she was my Maid of Honor.  Even though we only keep track of each other via annual Christmas cards, I'm glad I still know where she lives, at least.

Ok, I've left out all my Lehi friends.  That would take an entire book.  I have so so many I have made since Lehi became my home.  I suspect I even have some pictures, somewhere, of some of you.  Here's one I took at a Relief Society enrichment back in 2007.  The women in our ward in Lehi are all dear friends to me.  Some of you have been around a little longer than the others and our ties run that deep, but I love you all.  You make my life a better place to be.  We laugh together and we cry together.  And I wish I had digital copies of all my fondest memories.  Hopefully they will stay burned in my brain all my life.

June 12, 2007 - Beauty secrets enrichment night