For as long as I can remember I have always been the person who loves to get people together. I’m a middle child so that means I like to keep the peace, make sure everyone feels included, and orchestrate situations that make this all happen.
For my entire upbringing this meant that I tried to offer compromises so that my brothers wouldn’t argue or fight.
When I was in elementary school and boys and girls did not play together (#cooties), this meant I was the liaison between the two groups and I made it so that everyone wanted to play together.
In high school I invited all the youth kids to hangout on the weekends and made sure everyone was included. (although I was once accused of being in a “clique” with my brothers…not even sure how that’s possible)
And then when I was living in the dorms I decided I would make a home cooked meal every friday night in the dorm meeting room. We would eat, watch movies, play board games, celebrate birthdays and holidays, and all you had to do was chip in for groceries and maybe come early to help cook or stay after to help clean. Those evenings spent with new and old friends are some of my fondest memories of college and many of those friends are still my friends to this day.
BJ is one of those friends. Chris and I met him in the first few days on campus and invited him to come to our Friday night dinners. He was a regular attender and never backed down to any of our ridiculous dares (he once drank a whole gallon of koolaid in just a couple of minutes), and always came to the Christmas party.
Now he has a wife and newborn baby of his own and I had the joy of documenting their new life together as a family of 3.
