Celebrating the New Year

Today was a great day because I got to spend some time with a dear friend who is unexpectedly home from China. Amy and I first met when we were roommates in China the summer after our Freshman Year. We were great friends from then on out. We ended up living together at Auburn (along with 11 other girls), and she was a bridesmaid in my wedding (along with 12 other girls; yes it's true--13 bridesmaids). It was such an unexpected treat to get to spend a chunk of this day with her. Though we haven't seen each other in months, it was as if no time had passed. It was a bit surreal to hug her good-bye, knowing she was headed back across the Ocean for several more months.

Amy and I have spent several New Years together, the most memorable being four years ago. I was freshly graduated from Auburn with my Master's in Education, engaged to Scott, and briefly living at home until our wedding in April. Rambo (Amy's last name and what we call her) was living and working in New York at the time, and she and two of my other bridesmaids went in together to buy me a plane ticket to NY as a wedding gift. So the day after Christmas I headed to New York for one last hurrah as a single girl.

We had so much fun seeing the sights through the eyes of a local, and we ended the fun-filled week with a midnight run through Central Park to ring in the New Year. It was surreal to say the least.

There I was in the middle of that glorious city with two of my best friends, thinking about all that the coming year held. I was this 23 year old college graduate nervously trying to grasp the gravity of the vows that I would make in just a few months, and I somewhat understood that life was about to get very real. I knew, as I ran that midnight race through Central Park, that 2006 would bring much change. Little did I know that I would ring in 2007 with little Ada growing in my stomach.

Here we are, what seems like a lifetime ago, enjoying a fun dinner before the race later that night. Did I mention that Rambo was born on New Year's Eve. She always gets to celebrate her birthday in style:)

And then in Amy's apartment. (me, Laura Leary, and Amy Rambo)Excuse the quality of the photos. These were taken with a disposable camera.

I can't believe that only four years have passed since that night. It feels like a lifetime. And sure enough, life has become very real. I sat across from Rambo today at a table in Moe's, so very pregnant with baby number two, and we reminisced and caught up. I like to live vicariously through her many adventures--before New York, she lived and worked in Colorado, then after NY, she was in Africa, and now China. There is talk that she might spend a couple of years in the Atlanta area next. I am crossing my fingers.

I am so thankful for the friends that I made at Auburn. The Lord blessed me with so many girls who were very much in love with him. Rambo is one of the many that he has used to mold and shape and draw me closer to himself.

Anyway, four years later, I think I will meet the New Year fast asleep on my pillow. I am 34 weeks pregnant, after all.

update: to answer Mary Ann's question, we did end the night on Times Square after the crowds had cleared. We avoided Times Square before then. We wanted to miss the craziness. There was still confetti floating around by the time we got there, though, and in the wee hours of the morning we hopped on the subway and made our way back to Rambo's apartment. It was the perfect way to celebrate the New Year.