Bek ...

I've never heard the term second-chance friends, but that's exactly how I would describe my friendship with Becky. You see, I've had the same friends since I was in elementary school... Kim, Wendie, Karina and Jenn. Some I keep in contact with, some I don't. But they're the only ones I truly consider "good friends". Brian and I are both homebodies, so we haven't made good friends with anybody in our community. So our only friends are our childhood friends. Thanks to Bek and Brandon that has all changed.

Becky and I met on a message board for Mom's due in February of 2001. I asked her to join an email group we call the February mommies. And through that we became friends. She lived in Euguene at the time, about 2 1/2 hours away from where I was, but then moved to Vancouver, less than an hour from me. We finally met when she came to my baby shower in December of 2000. Then we met again to introduce the families. Then we met again when the girls were born. Then we met again and again and again ... voila, friends!

Now the wierd thing is that Becky and I have all these wierd similarities. Just random things that connect us. Like the fact that the exact day that Brian and I were married was the day that she and Brandon got engaged. How we have 3 kids ... 2 older boys and our Feb. baby girls. How we once cut out hair in the exact same style without consulting or speaking to each other about it first. How we could be easily mistaken for sisters. And there's more of these similarities that we've realized over the years. (Not to mention that she is SOLELY responsible for my scrapbooking obsession).

Another great thing is that Bek's husband Brandon and my hubby Brian get along very well. They're both rugged, outdoorsy, tinkering, manly kind of men. They can talk about fishing and fix cars. They can work on household projects and drink a few beers. They can just relate well to one another that makes it easy for Bek and I to get together without complaints.

We took a chance on Bek and Brandon and they have become our second-chance friends. The ones who weren't there for the first 27 years of our life but who we fully expect to be there for the next 27.