"Care Bears"

Chris and I hosted my college girlfriends and their families at our house on Saturday. We try to get together at least once a year, and each time we do, we say, "Why don't we do this more often???" The years have flown by (almost ten since we graduated from TCU!), our families have grown, our gatherings have changed A LOT, and man, do we have a lot of good memories together. It really is hard to believe I've known these girls for fourteen years!!!

Oh, you may be wondering about the title of this post. I met Kristin at band camp and knew Carly and Angie from marching band and Wind Symphony at TCU, but what really brought us together was our time in Tau Beta Sigma, a band service sorority. We all pledged TBS together in the spring of 2003, and each pledge class was given a name, typically a cartoon; ours was the "Care Bears." (Our friend Erica dubbed us the "Don't Care Bears" because none of us really had anything to do with Tau Beta Sigma after graduating... whoops!) We have tons of hilarious stories from pledging together and all the drama and fun times through the rest of our short, unbelievably great years at TCU.

Chrissy and Carly live in Fort Worth now; Angie lives in Sanger. Kristin is down in her hometown, Houston, and was unable to come up this year (but we did see her before Thanksgiving). Ten years after graduating and starting our adult lives (really? We're adults?? How did that happen?), Chris and I have a seven-year-old and a three-year-old. Chrissy and Anthony have a four-year-old (this month) boy and a baby girl. Angie and Lyndel have a sweet little three-year-old boy. Carly and Jeff have two boys, three years old and eight months old. Several of us have careers; some are teachers; two of us are stay-at-home moms (Carly and me--most of the time). 

I took a little trip down Memory Lane and nabbed some pictures from Facebook as I reflected about the many years we've been friends.

Good times in Tau Beta Sigma...

Kristin, Carly and me in our first year as active members

"Fun Night"

I believe this was our senior year Formal Tea!

Lots of football games!

me, Carly, Angie, Kristin before a game senior year

TCU beats OU in Norman, 2005!
Angie and I loved being drum majors at TCU three of our years there.

 We even went to several games together AFTER graduating.

Erica (another awesome friend), Carly, Kristin and I go "emo"

Carly, me and Kristin tailgating before Frogs for the Cure

Kristin, Carly, Angie and me at Baylor

I was the first (by far!) to bring a baby into the mix!
Me with Noah, Kristin, Carly and Angie at a game

We attended Band Formals and other college events together.

Graduation Day

We were at each other's weddings, of course!

Before my wedding in 2006

Angie's wedding in 2007

Carly's wedding shower in 2009

Kristin's rehearsal dinner in 2011

 Over the years, we've managed to remain friends and make time, whenever we can, to get together and look back on old times and look forward to new ones.

Kristin's 22nd birthday

At the Gristmill in San Marcos

Winter Park ski trip 2006

My friends threw me a baby shower before Noah was born

One of our winter gatherings--2008 or 2009

Definitely miss those relatively carefree college days, and certainly miss the days when I saw these girls daily. I think those memories are even sweeter because of how quickly that time passed and how far we've come since then. I love each of them and look forward to more times together as we continue through life!