My BFF - Alanna

So my best friend, Alanna (Anderson) Longhurst, has been griping about me having that old picture of us together on my blog. She doesn't like how she looks (which NONE of us do after we have just had kids) and so I told her I would replace it, but the picture that I have to replace it with doesn't have us with our kids... So I thought I would just add it to the blog as a new and better picture of the two of us.

Alanna is amazing. She took me in when I came back to Quincy after living in Missouri for 3 years and was my saving grace in a way. I didn't know anyone and had been gone for 3 year and so you can just imagine the lost feeling I had. She took me back without a bat of her eye and it was like I had never left. She is amazing and I remember her practicing her voice lessons. I used to hate her singing exercises because they were so LOUD and ANNOYING... but after I moved out of her house and we moved onto college and didn't see each other as much, I found myself missing those times and even her piercing voice lessons. :)

Alanna was the one who always made me laugh... even in the morning at 7am when we were just waking up. She would roll over to chat and immediately start laughing because my breath smelled so bad from the pickles I had ate the night previous that she couldn't stand to have me next to her and shoved me out of the bed! hahaha Or the time I went over to her house and used linen napkins for the first time... that night I had Alanna rolling because I used my napkin to wipe my runny nose and clean my plate off for dessert when I thought no one was looking. Those times were funny.

Or the time that she took me horseback riding right after I got back from St. Louis and planted a seed for the love of horses I now have. She sang the first country song I've ever heard (Tim McGraw's "She had BBQ Stains on her white T-Shirt. She was killing me in that mini-skirt. Skipping rocks on the river by the railroad tracks..." Do you know the one I'm talking about?) and now I'm hooked on country. She got me onto the Cross-Country Team and was there the first race I competed in when I got lost in the Leavenworth Forest.

Alanna has been there when I needed a friend to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, or vent my frustrations to. She took me out of my bubble of shyness and helped me become the woman I am today. She was there every Sunday at church with me growing up and we would take turns playing with one another's backs during Sacrament Meetings.

She is an amazing woman. She's a wife and mother now and I have to say she's on heck of an amazing lady. She is funny, articulate, passionate, hotter-than-snot when mad, patient, kind, always ready to give a piece of her mind or advise to you.... and I am really truly lucky to be able to call her my best friend. She inspires me to become better; and I love the fact that even when I know I have to do something, it's only when she vocalizes it to me that it really clicks. I miss her a ton since high school and we have lived at a distance from one another. She is down in Utah right now and might be moving to California soon and I'm here in good ol' Washington. But we find ways to see each other and "catch up" even though it doesn't seem like enough time in the day to do so.

I love you Alanna and want to thank you for all the years that you've been there for me and pushed me to do better or be something more. On more than one occasion you kept me on the straight and narrow, made me laugh when I wanted to cry, and have really given so much in friendship that I hope to have given back just a portion. Thank you for being strong and for being you no matter what the circumstance was. You're awesome!