Last night I went out to meet old friends for a few hours.  A very old friend, Stef,  (since middle school!) was setting up a celebration for another friend, Shannon, who was coming into town.  However, the celebration was celebrating LIFE!  This friend coming into town was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer 8 months ago.  She just finished her chemo and 2 weeks ago her energy returned.  She’s sporting a fancy wig and some apprehension of her upcoming tests to assess the efficacy of her chemo, but for these two weeks she is celebrating with friends and family.  Stef had set up a beautiful slide show for Shannon of old and new pics, including treatment pics and a few from a 5K Shannon did right at the end of her treatment for her birthday.  To say the tears were flowing, is an understatement.  Life is short.  Unfortunately, the older we get the more we realize how precious each day is.

My face hurt from laughing and smiling so much (these people are Facebook posting picture crazAY!!) and catching up with friends I haven’t seen in months and some in years.

Camera hams. Every last one of them!

Another friend that was there is on the backside of her breast cancer treatment is in reconstruction stage.  My mom used to work for her dad (an orthopedic surgeon…now 87 and working and patenting new forms of electricity and power for the love!!  how cool is that!??!?), she is the sweetest thing.  She found her cancer because a friend of hers was diagnosed, so she went for a baseline mammogram @ age 38, no symptoms.  They found cancer.  3 young children and a husband.  She’s doing wonderful, because they caught her cancer early.  Moral of the story:  LADIES.  GET.  YOUR.  ANNUAL.  MAMMOGRAM.

It was a fun night overall.  I left to pick up our son from roller skating so I missed destination #2 (and that’s a good thing!).  However, the hilarious finale was when someone discovered the restaurant had a GIANT camera in the billiards area and you could post straight to Facebook from this wall camera….OH.  LOOK.  OUT!!!  **all of these pics are from that camera.  Enjoy.

Happy Weekend!