Friends
This page is dedicated to all of my friends, online and off! 
There are so many times in my life when I don’t think I would’ve been able to get by without a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on, and/or some kind words of support or advice… Thanks to those who have been there through it all.
Paul
Of course Paul is first on my list… he’s not only my spouse and life partner, he’s also my best friend. We somehow manage not to get sick of each other, even in our different roles together – trying to parent together, look after our home and finances together, and socialize together. True tests of our friendship happen all the time (like when we were painting Harmony’s bedroom over a long weekend and spent time together in a small room 24/7!) and we are often surprised to find how much we are “in sync”. It is a wonderful thing to be able to find yourself in love with someone who is also such a good friend.
GHS Group
It’s not everyone who can say that they are still close with their group of friends from high school, even years down the road! I feel blessed that our group has managed to keep in touch, even with all our life changes. There’s something truly special about having a bond with friends for over a decade!
Karen
One of my closest (”best”) friends is Karen, whom I’m also know since grade 9. I actually met Harmony’s dad’s through her. She is a very “out there” chickie (shaved her head before I got up the courage to!) 
but also so extremely bright! We got to know each other really well when I joined the high school band (I played clarinet, and Karen played the bari sax). I guess you could say we had a “special” relationship at one point as well- thanks for teaching me about some of the important things in life, Karen! 
Karen now has children of her own, which makes our relationship even more enriching – we’re able to relate to each other as mothers and talk about all the joys (and not-so-fun moments!) of parenting! Her first little girl is just 4 years younger than Harmony and they’ve been growing up a little bit like cousins, which I think is wonderful. Her newest addition to the family is a few years younger than Avery and I love seeing our kids playing together.
Kelly
Karen’s partner Kelly has been around since high school as well and graduated the same year I did. He is the first of our little gang to hit 30 and of course we mercilessly tease him over that fact. As much as I always say I don’t like “boys”, I guess Kelly’s also managed to sneak under my radar to claim a stake as a close friend.
Karen and Kelly were married on September 26th, 2006, and I had the honour of being one of the bridesmaids. It was a beautiful fall wedding, and we all had wonderful roses and other bright flowers in our hair. Harmony helped out with little Aili, who looked so adorable decked out for the big day! Now they have had their first child together, I am loving being “Auntie Kris” yet again. We wish them all the best happiness.
Isabella
We didn’t even know our family had a guardian angel in the form of our friend, but we found out we did when Isabella was helping us out through some tough times. We are truly blessed to have her as a friend, and the kids really like her too. We can also brag
about the fact that this friend (younger than we are, no less!) is a PhD candidate out in Western Canada. See, we have such smart friends!
Cynthia
Another amazing friend is Cynthia, and although she’s made Toronto her new home base (-sniff-), we still manage to squeeze in some quality phone call time. Not to mention the fact that she’s often back in town to visit. She played the clarinet in band with me (and much better than me, might I add), which is where we met. You rock, chickie!
One special thing Cynthia and I share is that we were each other’s bridesmaids in our weddings – which happened to be 2 weeks apart! Now we’ll be sharing an anniversary month too – it’s great to have someone to chat with about married life.
Cynthia & her hubby have started their family with the addition of baby Hannah in winter 2009 and she is a very adorable baby – I can’t wait to see what other munchkins they add to their fam!
Alicia
‘licia is yet another of my “chickie”s! Alicia is one of the few non-Carleton people-
she went to my school (yes, the good one! ) She plays the flute and sings and went to my high school (and was in our little “band and vocal geek” gang. Our friendship is still growing, and sometimes we’re both a little guarded about it because we’ve both been hurt in life and love, but maybe that will be our bond too in a way… Alicia started out her career in teaching, but now works at the RCMP like Paul.
As a funny twist of fate, Alicia is now engaged to be married… to my cousin! It’s not as strange a coincidence as you might think, since they actually met through us. They both were on board to help out when we moved to our new house in June 2009. Dennis proposed exactly one year later in June 2010 and we were just beyond thrilled. Can’t wait for their wedding this fall!
Nadia
This energetic member of our little group can’t be left out! We’ve also known each other since high school, especially since she lives on the same street as one of my cousins did! Nadia’s very fun to have around at parties we throw, but enjoys being at family-type stuff since she and Harmony are pretty cute together.
Nadia and I got to be bridesmaids together for Karen’s wedding and had tons of fun (and looked fabulous of course). We dragged Karen out together for a girls’ night out bachelorette party and enjoyed a shopping trip and dinner and drinks out at a groovy restaurant. You couldn’t ask for a more fun and sweet friend!
Val
Ok, I’m including Val in this section of friends (even though she didn’t go to GHS)
because we met her through the “GHS gang” group of friends. She was one of the first people to be around while Paul and I first started dating, and definitely has a role to play in our history together. She now lives in Toronto, but still keeps in touch.
Playgroup Mommies
A big shout-out to the Playgroup Mommies – Amanda, Trina, Helen, Catherine, Jenn, Jennifer, & Sonia!!! who are now also Scrapbooking Mommies too! We met when our “Winter 2004/2005″ babies were small and have kept in touch, through the Tuesday afternoon playgroup for babies under 1 when we were all on mat leave and afterwards through other playgroups and playdates. The kids had their first birthday party together @ Cosmic Adventures and always invited each other to birthdays as they got older.
Now us moms enjoy getting together to scrapbook pics of our growing kids! The kids have built-in friends and party guests to boot. Some have moved a little farther away and some have moved very far away, but we have our common ties of mothering those “birthday buddies” to keep us in touch.
Scrapbooking Mommies
This is the group that brings everyone together from different groups to share one common crafty hobby – scrapbooking!! I host a crop every once in a while and love to drag out my big table and sometimes bake! We all bring our albums or cards we’re working on and share tools and supplies. It’s always neat when someone brings a different tool!
MOMS
“Hi” to Patty, Adrian & Susan from the MOMS group!
Our little ones have grown from babies to toddlers and still manage to be little handfuls! Thanks to Jeffrey and Emily for coming to Avery’s 2nd birthday party, hope they can come over and play another time soon!
My hubby’s friends
Kat, Kurt, & Karen are my hubby’s friends (and were the 3 people in his wedding party) but I also knew them all in high school too! Kat and Kurt were in both the High School band, and the “potton colyester” (PC) group (don’t ask, just don’t ask!)
And I guess they were prone to the in-group breeding virus that hit us as well, because now Kat and Kurt are married to each other and Karen’s partner is another friend in their group, Ian. Kat and Kurt also welcomed their new baby girl Eve into their family and we have really been loving watching her grow up – what a smart little sweetheart!
High School chickies
Another group of high school friends are Nina, Meg, Dawnie, and Angie. I knew them all in highschool and now mostly keep in touch with them online, through LiveJournal and/or Facebook. Meg also now has a little boy Wylie, and they brought us a cute Little Tykes car which Avery just loved as a toddler. We went to Nina’s wedding in August 2006 and it was a really lovely backyard ceremony and wedding. Harmony enjoyed taking lots of pictures!! and both kids enjoyed playing with Nina’s dog Pepper.
University Friends
Even though it’s been a few years since I graduated, I still love keeping in touch with my friends from university. Some have stayed in Ottawa (like Aimée and Abby), some have moved not too-too far away (like Heidi in Southern Ontario) and some have made their home in other corners of the country (like Tina and her family in British Columbia).
I miss those days of lugging around heavy textbooks to our Psychology and Women’s Studies classes, but since there are also parts of being a student I don’t miss, I guess I can accept that we’re left with just memories of fun times!
Online Friends
There are just soo many wonderful women that I have met online over the years…
From the moms in the YM Communities I ran (Young Canadian Mommies, Young University Mommies) to women I’ve met in Mom & Pregnnacy lists and message boards (Dec 98 mommies), to other online friends I chat with on MSN (Nicole, Marie), to LiveJournal friends (Stephanie), to all my mommy friends in the YM Boards (Cara, Samy, Amanda, Tiffany, Jessica, Sarah & Sarah, Kayla, Ashley, Toni, Christianne, Jen, and so so many more wonderful moms) … so many people have become really special to me and have helped me through some tough time in life!
Many cyber ((((hugs)))) go out to all my online friends!
