Borne To Travel: Happy Birthday, Rachel!!!

This is Rachel and I at the Micheal Bublé concert a couple of summers ago.

Last week was Rachel's birthday, but due to many unforeseen circumstances, we only got to celebrate on Sunday. Rachel and I have been friends for *cough* 16 1/2 years *cough*! Wow, that's a loooooong time. We met at Bethany Bible Institute in Hepburn, Saskatchewan in Sept. 1990. We started getting really close when we played basketball together. My most fun memory of BBI with Rachel was pulling an all nighter finishing a paper and then going to the gym at 6:00 in the morning and practicing with the boys b.ball team. The guys were wondering what we were doing up so early and we said that he hadn't even gone to bed yet, so we figured we'd just stay up. Good times, good times. Rachel was from Brazil and Manitoba (she came from a missionary family), but I think it was around 1994 or 1995 when she moved out to New Westminster, so we got to start spending more time together. Her and I and another friend bought a Jam Pack of tickets (11 games) to the Vancouver Grizzlies (remember them?) in 95/96 and we had a BLAST going to the games. I actually got to see Michael Jordan play live which was one of my greatest thrills in life. Glad I got to share that with you, Rae. Then, in 1996, I got even more lucky and she moved to Abbotsford into a house with myself and two other girls. We had a lot of fun in that house. I still remember being woken up at 2 am and Rachel standing there with roses in her hand and she said, "Do you want to see the roses or the ring first?" It took me awhile to process what she was saying, and when it clicked in that she had just gotten engaged, there were hugs all around. I was privileged to be a candle lighter in her wedding in 1997, right before I headed off to go travelling and then to work in Camden, NJ. Rachel was really good at keeping in touch with me while I was gone and her and Mark even let me live with them the summers in between when I came home. Isn't that nice of the newlyweds? When I decided to come home from Camden, Rachel flew across the country to drive back home with me. Leaving Camden was an extremely difficult decision for me and I wasn't in the best mental state, so Rachel will NEVER know how much that meant to me (even though she's probably sick of hearing me tell her). She only came out a couple of days before we were going to start driving home, so I took her on a whirlwind tour of Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Atlantic City and New York. We had SUCH a great time and we did the drive in 3 days stopping at friends in Chicago, Winnipeg and my parents in Calgary. That was a GREAT road trip, Rae. Thanks for going on that journey with me.

Since then, Mark and Rachel have had 3 beautiful boys whom I love dearly. Again, they have taken me in while I've been without a place to house sit and they never complain or ask me for anything in return. Thank you, Rachel for your amazing friendship. I'm the type of person who needs to vent and discuss things, and Rachel can always tell when I need advice or when I just need someone to listen. I can only hope that I'm half as good a listener as you are, Rae. God has truly blessed me with your friendship.

On Sunday, Natasha and I brought lunch and a cake over to her place and then we went to a movie (In the Land of Women - quite cute). Here's Rachel with her 3 awesome boys.