Constant Wedding Bells

I feel like my summer has been consumed by one wedding related event after another! It's been showers, bachelorette parties, ceremonies and receptions nonstop! I feel really bad for the number of showers I have had to miss--usually due to having some other prior wedding commitment. Just check out this list:

1. Beth's Wedding (had to miss the shower for a track meet)
2. Michelle's Clan Woman Shower
3. Michelle's Louisville Shower (missed second Louisville shower due to work)
4. Michelle's Bachelorette Party (missed second day of bachelor party due to work)
5. Nic and Michelle's Rehearsal
6. Nic and Michelle's Wedding
7. Kelli's Shower (missed due to work)
8. Kelli's Bachelorette Party
9. Kelli and Brandon's Rehearsal
10. Kelli and Brandon's Wedding
11. Meagan's Shower --> This Weekend, but I'm missing due to Grandma's birthday in Ohio
12. Meagan Bachelorette Party is Sept. 6
13. Meagan's Wedding is Oct. 4

So I'm getting my full dosage of weddings and marriage without ME actually coming anywhere near it...which is definitely a good thing! The latest event, of course, was Kelli's wedding, which I was honorably a part of. At the rehearsal dinner I sat next to a friend of Kelli and Brandon's, also by the name Brandon, and after confirming that I was a Casey County/basketball friend, he asked if it was weird for me to see Kelli getting married and if it was something I had ever thought I'd see way back in our young days. And, I don't know, it is a weird question to answer...

Honestly, it's something I have thought about with every one of the weddings I have been to where it was one of MY friends up on the alter--not

 one of my parents' friends or an older relative--someone whom I have considered a peer all of my life--an equal. And I 

suppose it is weird. All of these people are my equals, yet I don't see myself as anywhere close to being able to be married! Then again, I have always been way behind all of my "equals" on the dating scene... when they were on their fourth/fifth/sixth relationship, I was hoping for my first kiss! I mean, I still have trouble dealing with the concept of a--dare I say the word--boyfriend! But what is beautiful is that these people I am watching my peers unite with are people I can no longer imagine them without.

And the main thing is that I believe I am finally coming to realize that these things are no long "weird."  Instead they are now NORMAL in m

y life.  Believe it or not we ARE growing up, and while it is something I never wanted to do, I am actually okay with it.  Life continues to be an adventure--and best of luck to all of my dear friends who have just begun a WONDERFUL adventure with someone else! 

My "Small World" Life Strikes Again!

Maybe it's because I grew up in a small town environment...but even now that I am venturing further and further into the "big world" I am loving what a SMALL word we live in.

I was just about the first one to show up to work yesterday and as people trickled in it still felt pretty empty--not much chatter on a Monday morning. But the first thing that was said to me most definitely brought a smile to my face as I knew the conversation could only get better... "So you know Kyle Burns?"

When the name Kyle Burns comes up...I know things are going to get interesting. Kyle worked with me during my first summer at GSP as a fellow RA. The best way I can describe why we connected so easily is to tell you that one of the first things we learned about each other was that we had a couple of mutual friends: Steve Hanson and Tommy Antony--as in my Man Clan friends that I have been hanging out with since I was a Bellarmine freshman. So I suppse when he realized I hung out with the likes of those guys, he decided that I was a decent girl...decent enough for him to immediately begin finding ways to give me crap constantly.

I have only seen Kyle once since our six weeks of GSP together and that was very brief. Amazingly enough, though, Kyle seems to always know me oh-so-well and we always seem to cross paths somehow. I have met his cousin, Amanda, who was Steve's high school girlfriend--the reason Kyle knows the Man Clanians. And this past Spring Break he went to Florida with Dani's best friend from high school, Katherine, whom I have also met.

As it turns out, my coworker, David, and Kyle grew up together and have been best friends their entire lives! As I talked with David about how I knew Kyle I also learned that he too knows Steve and Tommy! In fact--Steve, Kyle and David all spent 4th of July weekend together!

My small world story does not stop there, though! Of course I needed to make mine and David's friendship "official" and add him on Facebook and the first thing I did was check to see who all of our mutual friends were. Several Bellarmine folk from the NKY didn't surprise me, nor did Casey Countians who'd attended EKU since that is where David went to college. The name that did surprise was none other than the cousin: IAN ADKINS!

Now, obviously I know that Ian grew up and went to high school in Richmond and EKU is in Richmond, but during the years that David would have attended EKU, Ian was here in Louisville at Bellarmine. I got to the bottom of it this morning, and, of course, there was a mutual friend between David and Ian at Bellarmine. (Whom I actually worked in the residence life office with my freshman year.)

To top off all of this crazy small world business, apparantly through knowing Ian my coworker, David Hobbs, rented out Auntie Joanie's 4th Street apartment while still living in Richmond!

David whom I met last week at my new job, Kyle whom I met two years ago when working together as RAs for GSP, and Steve whom I have been friends with since running track with him at BU as a freshman, have all known each other since their high school days in Northern Kentucky.