Friends Old and New

Way back in the day, I walked into my new college dorm room at my Winthrop University (where I knew ONE person) and met Marcie Neal. Before the week was out, we were singing together and laughing. A lot! As any good relationship, we um..."sharpened" each other too. We are two strong-minded (read stubborn?) ladies with a lot of good sense. But in the middle of it all was love. And singing. One night, we sang in mock-opera for several hours...just a regular conversation...all sung. Good times.
Fast-forward about ## years later (sheesh--can I really say 18??), and she is a Mama too...and now a Yon to my Jones. With three sweet little ones to my one. They were able to drop by for a visit the day before Thanksgiving. Shepard was pretty excited to have three new playmates all at once! The coolest thing was one of her daughters found a book on Shepard's shelf that was an audio version of "Aladdin." The kids all played with it while they were here. The next day, I read the inscription in the front..."From Marcie Neal, Christmas 1993." We were freshmen. The batteries in that thing still work! And Shepard has been enjoying it since the Yon kids pulled it out for us.

We tried to get pictures, but our wiggly ones were WIGGLY. Shepard hasn't mastered cheesing for the camera quite yet. There are other things he could be doing, I guess. Here are the results...what a sweet little pile o' kids!!!

L-R: Wiggly Shepard (17 mos.), Edy (7), Joshua (11 mos.), Abi (almost 3)