Girl Talk by Gina

Challenge 8 for the Amazing Race was a tough one for me. Finding the pictures was a real challenge. I managed to find ones from when I was a teenager pretty easily; had to scan them in, but I found them easily. They aren't the greatest pictures in the world; but who has the greatest pictures from when they were a teenager. Not many people back then. Anyway ... finding current pictures was more difficult. I am always taking the pictures. Especially when I am with Mariah ... well, she takes pictures too, but nobody takes pictures of us together! I decided to use a picture of me holding Mariah's new baby and a picture of her when she was pregnant. We were at the bowling alley and she was taking pictures of the boys and Mackenzie bowling. She and I love to take pictures and do so as often as we can, especially when we are together. Maybe some day we will be able to get someone to take a picture of us together. For this layout I chose to mix a bunch of things together. The background paper, journaling page and star are from Amanda Thorderson's A New Baby Boy kit. The wordart is from Tracy Dane, Kikibug and TartzScrapz. They were all freebie downlaods from awhile ago. I love wordart, so I have quite a collection. Font is Velvet Script. Full page journaling reads as follows:
The meaning of friendship changes as we get older, along the same lines as we do. When I was in high school I spent a lot of my free time hanging out with Leslie Erpelding. She and I were inseparable. We played Volleyball together and did Chorus together as well. She was a year ahead of me in school, so we didn't have classes together, except for Chorus, but we got to spend lunch period together. The photos below show just how goofy we could be when we wanted to. Luckily there was someone around to take pictures of us, even if it was to embarass us with them later. Leslie was there for me no matter what. She helped me through boy troubles and parent problems and I did the same for her. She was even nice enough to help me learn how to drive. The things we talked about back then don't seem all that important now, but they were back then. I am married now and have children of my own ... all boys of course, so I won't have to deal with them and "girl talk". Every girl needs someone to talk to though, a place to vent her frustrations. I found that person again a few years ago. Being a military family we don't live in the same place for very long. That makes it hard to find real friends. Mariah is a great friend though. She and I cn spend hours on the phone talking about nothing. I dont' know what I would ahve done without her during Mitch's last deployment; or what I will do witout her during the upcoming deployment. She still lives in Mannheim, but we are stationed in Baumholder now. It is a 70 minute drive to get to her house, Luckily we still have the telephone and instant messaging. Thank God for the computer. It is a necessity that I talk to her every day. She knows just what to say when I am mad or frustrated with my children, or upset because of something that Mitch has said or done. She is a real sweetheart. Our normal conversations are more about our kids and life in the military than anything else, but its great to be able to talk with someone who knows what I am going through. Not many people understand the life of a military wife. Its great when you connect with someone who does. I'm glad I found Mariah!