Be Our Guest

When I was somewhere around 6-years-old I met a girl named Julia. I don't even know if she remembers this, but I was camping with my mom and stepdad and sister, and she was camping with her parents, and that was the first time we met. Even though we both lived in Quincy, we went to different elementary schools (yes, people, there are two - and that's not even counting the Christian school) so we didn't really become friends until the seventh grade.

The coolest seventh-grade girls at Quincy Jr./Sr. High School circa 1991 (I don't know what's more rad, my leggings or Julia's glasses)

Julia and her parents went to Europe that year and she got to take her BFF Sorrell and I was soooooo jealous of these two traipsing around Italy while I was stuck in Mr. Harlan's Spanish class.

Julia and I really got to be good friends a couple years later when we were in Consumer Life Skills together (think HomeEc with a PC name). We planned our weddings and carried around egg babies and cooked a few dishes and mooned over the older boys.

Julia (also sometimes known as J.J.) is one of the few friends I remained in touch with after high school. On Christmas breaks, we'd take turns making each other egg nog from scratch. When I had an internship in north-central Washington after college and she was in Seattle for law school, she let me come visit for the weekend as many times as I wanted, showing me the sights and teaching me how to make latkes (which I actually made a few months later as a Hanukkah treat for the sports boys of The Yuma Sun because one of them was Jewish and all of them lived in my apartment complex and appreciated free food.)

When Chris and I decided to move to Reno, I was excited for many reasons, one of them knowing we'd get to see Julia and her now-husband Bob more often, because they'd recently moved back to Quincy. Last year, I was headed to Quincy for a quick trip for Julia's wedding shower. I really wanted to be there, but (really, ridiculously long story short) I ended up losing control of the car on a snowy road, getting stuck and having to be towed into town. The snow never let up so I couldn't go home. The next morning, I stopped by to give Julia her gift, and she served up some tea and cookies. She is just such a great hostess. If you spend the night at her house, she stocks the guest room with great magazines and makes champagne cocktails to sip on while you chat. She is just a great friend and a great person and by now you may be wondering why I'm going on and on here ... and there is good reason.

Coming this weekend, Julia will be the very first guest blogger here at Gabel and Gabel. We at HQ are very excited about this new little venture and hope you are, too! Stay tuned ... and let us know if you're interested in posting a guest blog, too!