Backyards and the Very Best Kind of Old and Easy Friends

This weekend we managed to make out of the Donahue's garage, and through the summer's pre-eminent waste of three perfectly good days in what was once the end-all of our whole being, Port Lambton's Gala Days, without giving birth to baby #2.  Good thing, or our good friend Paul Dickinson might have had to take off his baseball cleats, set down his guitar (odd combination, I know, but he's a wonderfully odd fellow) and help deliver that puppy.  We figure the child's already got a well developed sense of timing and a nose for a good party, otherwise, the three day riverside celebration might have been memorable for a reason other than reconnecting with good friends.  She at least gave us a chance to have a little fun.

Gala Days used to be the seminal event of all of our young summers.  It's funny how it can still feel so special despite the decades that have passed.  We found ourselves with friends we see fairly regularly, and trading hugs and handshakes with friends whom we haven't seen in years.  It was all so easy, as if not a day had passed. We reconnected with old high school friends, and with people whose families so often treat us as their own, who open up their home to us, and everyone, every year.  It was brilliant. Even those people whom we've only just fumbled around the fringes of friendship with were so kind and fun, and the weekend almost always reminds us why we love them, and why we're happy to remember where we grew up, and the people who made us, and continue to carve us into the lives we enjoy.  Not much has changed since we were seventeen years old...a day or two just isn't enough, and we miss it all before it's even gone.

Thanks to the Donahue family for opening up their home, their garage and their backyard to everyone, and mucho, heartfelt and sincere, affection to Paul and Jody, Robin, Birdy and Kaylen, Wadz and Aim, Kevin and Kelly, Mabes, Shannon, Brooke, and everyone we were oh-so fortunate to spend the day with.  We miss that sense of friendship and family that we just haven't found even just thirty or forty minutes away.  Thanks for making the weekend feel the exact same way as it has for a decade or two, just the best part of a far too short summer.  We've spent all day deciding that we must see so much more of you.