Then there were five

Nope, not expecting twins.

At UCSD freshman orientation, I met Emily. We wound up in a few of the same classes and became fast friends. She brought Jessica, her suite-mate, to a few of those classes, and then the three of us were friends. Then, winter quarter, I met a gal named Natalie in ballet class, and it turned out she was in MMW with Jess and me. So, the four of us became friends, thanks in no small part to the El Nino. That alone is another story, but let's just say it was the middle of the night and our jeans were soaked to our thighs.

So we were four, living together in various permutations, and generally having a blast in the way you do when you're a young woman who can spend hours giggling over such things as Rousseau, the giant waffle in the sky. With diamonds.

Of course, after college, we scattered. Knowing that we'd likely never all live in the same place again, we made a pact to get together once a year for a girls trip, but that eventually it might become a family trip so our kids would know each other and could invent their own ways to distinguish Rousseau from Hobbes and Locke. We've managed some sort of gathering nearly every year since college and we've been to Sedona, Savannah (oh my stars you have to go there, but read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil first), DC, NYC, and Boston... and what am I forgetting? Anyway, being such rad ladies, they planned to visit me this year knowing how hard it would be for me to travel and so they could meet Grace!

These are "the girls"

In Georgia in spring 2004 (can't remember what island it was - do you guys?)

And they're coming this weekend to meet the fifth girl.