The Best of Friends

By my recollection, Jess and I met the summer after 4th grade when we were both campers at Manalapan Recreation (or what we called Rec for sure).  I was 10, she was about to turn or just had turned 11.  We didn't go to the same school at the time, but we met up in middle and high school.  No matter how much time passes or how far apart we are, we always fall right back in line with each other.  We've spanned different colleges, different states, have been leading arguably different lives - but our friendship has remained true and pure.  We are now both 35, and we marvel that it has been 25 years.

We are both thrilled to finally be living on the same coast...the closest we have lived to each other since we were in high school.  We visited New York in November for the kids' TV debut (which was made possible by Jess) and they made a trip to DC this weekend to stay with us, and do some sightseeing.  We have created a bit of a monster with Keely (Keyak as Ethan calls her) and Ethan...a bit of an obsession.  Ethan just loves her, and was so excited to be seeing her again this weekend.  They spent most of the time together.  She was such a diligent babysitter, waking up much earlier than usual to hang with E, and taking such good care of him.  She even took a bath with him (her in a bathing suit, of course) and I question who enjoyed that bath more.  There was much laughter and good conversations, and Jess and Jon got to experience the bliss of having older children around to care for the little one so that they could relax and chat as adults get to do when their kids get older.  We braved some pretty cool April weather on Saturday to explore DC...walking around the Washington Monument and WWII Memorial.  We followed that with some museum hopping, from American History (love that First Ladies exhibit) to Natural History (the Titanoboa exhibit is pretty cool, along with the old favorites) and then a bit of the Castle and the surrounding gardens.  After some downtime back at the Donovan homestead, we headed back out for an early dinner in Old Town Alexandria.  This was Jon's idea, and thanks to Jess and yelp.com we found what will most definitely be a repeat dinner establishment for us...the Columbia Firehouse.  We walked down to get some cupcakes from what will most definitely not be a repeat bakery for us (they weren't worth the calories) and then down to the water.  We didn't get rained on, and it was a busy but fun day.

Their visit was so much fun, and we wished it would have been a bit longer but it was really perfect.  We're already talking about another meet-up...Philadelphia is being discussed or maybe we will be NY bound again.  It's so great that we are both so close to Amtrak. 

And I've just had the realization that I can credit Rec for both my soul mate and my lifelong best friend.  It's unlikely that James and I would have met without Rec and while it's likely that Jess and I would have, it's still where we can credit the beginning of that friendship.  How amazing!