FIRST IMPRESSION ON THE FIRST...

my FIRST IMPRESSION of my FIRST FRIEND IN AUSTIN

about a year before evan and i moved to austin,

my bff kristin moved there.

she paved the way quite nicely for us.

she found a good apartment complex, made great friends,

and graciously let us benefit from these things when we arrived.

the first of kristin's friends i met was rubey.

so technically she was my first (new) friend in austin.
another technicality is her name is melissa rubey,

but you can feel free to call her rubey.

everyone does.

one day in the spring before our move,

evan and i drove to austin to drop off resumes at various schools,

in hopes of me getting a teaching job.

we met rubey in the parking lot of the school where she was already teaching.

her district had some openings and she offered to put in a good word for me before we even met.

we parked and she came out and introduced herself,

then we went directly into meet her principal.

i remember this like it was yesterday,

as we approached her principal she said,

"this is my friend annalee i was telling you about."

you have to love the gift of an instant friend.

i've never taken that for granted the way she called me her friend mere minutes after we met.

throughout the three years we spent in austin the friendship grew.

we lived the day-to-day and along the way we celebrated

with birthday parties for people and pets alike.

we dined together most weekends.

we watched movies, played games and had dance parties.

we had slumber parties often.

as our family grew, rubey was also there.

she was at the hospital the day adelaide was born.

she was a's first babysitter,

when i went to get a much needed haircut on one of her newborn days.

these two have always shared a sweet bond.

it's mutual how much they enjoy one another's company.

and adelaide's not the only one that enjoys time with her.

graham loves hanging out with rubey too.

actually our whole family feels that same way about rubes.

it's safe to say she's like family.

which might explain why i found more than one "family of 5" pictures.

it was nice to be (almost) neighbors for awhile,

and it's even nicer to be friends much longer than that.

"truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget."