Orman and Phyllis

 While we were in New York, Orman and Phyllis, their kids and their extended family stayed at our home in Salt Lake. When we arrived home on Sunday night, everyone had left except for Orman and Phyllis.

 
It's been a long time since we've been together and I realized just how much I missed being with them after sitting next to each other catching up for a few hours and wishing it didn't have to end so soon. 

We had a couple more hours this morning at breakfast before they had to leave. 

But still, not enough time.

I wanted to make cherry pies with Phyllis or fail at toffee together 

and eat it out of the cookie sheet with a fork while watching a good movie again. 

I wanted to laugh so hard I pee'd my pants at a story she told and was always 

willing to laugh at herself and the situations she ended up in.

To go shopping together where she would always convince me 

I had to buy the outfit I'd tried on because it looked too good to pass up.

Go walking in the morning at her extra speedy pace. 

I wondered if she still swam every morning, but I forgot to ask. 

To get her expertise on nutrition, vitamins, supplements, the body, the brain and everything she's learned over the years in an effort to help heal herself and her children.

I still drink the green drink she recommended a million years ago.

Do a puzzle together.

Since our trip to Rosemary Beach in 2014, we've only seen each other a couple of times. 
They flew to New Mexico for Dan's Dad's funeral and we had a night together in Utah over a holiday. 

I called her once to get her help deciphering Strategene.

But those times we didn't have very long together and were with a lot of other people so it wasn't one-on-one. Being together brought back so many memories over the years combined with disappointment that I've let too many go by without making time together a priority. 

There was a time when the Shaeffers, Andersons and Wickhams 

always had a trip on the books -- whole families or just girls trips. 

Our paths have been so aligned with husbands getting accounting degrees, living in Dallas together, going to business school, living in New York together, 

our kids being born within months of each other, moving so often. 

There was a time that we stopped in Dallas on our way home 

to Utah or New Mexico so we didn't miss seeing them.

All my siblings and most of my friends in Utah know the names of our good friends, "Orman and Phyllis & Kurt and Tiffany" because we've talked about them so much.

 We've laughed harder with them than anyone and s

o, so many years ago speculated about our futures... and now here we are. 

It's been too long since we've spent meaningful time together. It's time to remedy that.