Welcome Andrew Carter!!

I just want to give a shoutout to my good friend Jami and her husband David, who welcomed their new son, Andrew, into the world on Halloween! I have to say that we were all a bit surprised by the name they chose. You see, Jami has always been a HUGE fan of the show 'Friends'. Her first son's name is Joseph Chandler, aka "Joey", so the name Ross was a 2-1 favorite amongst our friends. We thought something perhaps like Ross Phoebe or Ross An'Rachel might be in there somewhere. But, Andrew is a great name. What's awesome is their last name is Jackson, so he's a namesake for the 7th President of the United States!

Anyway, I am just very excited that everything is going well and I hope to get to see them soon. Jami and I have been friends at least since 3rd grade, maybe earlier. I don't get to see her often, since she had been living in Alaska for several years and now lives outside Seattle. Here are some of my favorite memories with Jami:

1. We were the only two in our group of friends who loved Star Trek: The Next Generation, so we often nerded out in middle school and wrote notes to each other in class with our code names. I was "Troi" and she was "Geordi". Yeah, we were dorks, but it was fun! I wouldn't trade it for anything.

2. She was there for me when I got my foot stuck in the basket beneath the desk in front of me in 8th grade Spanish class, even though she couldn't stop laughing.

3. I went to her New Kids on the Block birthday party when I didn't even like them and actually spent the evening shooting pool in the basement with her neighbor, Kevin, listening to this new band called "The Offspring".

4. For another birthday, Jami had a slumber party where we played "Truth or Dare" and had our sleeping bags all arranged in a circle in her living room. When it was my turn, I asked Ehren Ressell "Truth or Dare" and she chose dare..... so I told her to stick her naked butt on the living room plate glass window until a car drove by. Just as Ehren was doing so, Jami's mom came out and caught her!! Her mom said that we all had to clean the windows the next morning! Then, her mom sat there to make sure we were all going to sleep. Unfortunately, I wasn't in my sleeping bag, because I had gone to lay next to my friend Ali, but I didn't dare make a move!

5. Jami has a huge famiy that goes to Table Rock Lake every summer. I got to tag along in the once and had the best time water skiing and riding wave runners.

Here are some pix that I dug up... Jami's gonna kill me!! :)

March 2006: Me, Jami, and Katie (Tricia was taking the photo)

LHS Varsity Tennis Team 1996:
Jami is second from the left and I'm on the far right.

Jami's Basement 1996:
Jami had a dark room in her basement and took and developed this photo.

Table Rock Lake 1995:
Wave runner fun! We were racing her uncle's boat.