Erin! Erin!

I can't tell you how happy it made me to take Sonia to meet a long-lost friend of mine earlier this month....  Erin Dunning and I didn't go to the same high school, but when our mutual clarinet teacher introduced us and we started meeting up in honor & community bands, we became fast friends.  During my junior and senior years in high school, Erin and I, along with another area clarinettist named Alex, ran around the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas together, having ridiculous amounts of fun.  We dorkily dubbed ourselves the Foothill Clarinets and counted the days until we could hang out again.  As we trickled off to college (I was the oldest, Alex was a year behind me, and Erin was a year behind him), we met up when we could, but then we eventually lost touch.  Thanks to Facebook, however, Erin and I have reconnected and I got the chance to see her when she visited her friend, Carla, who happens to live in a nearby western suburb.  As usual, Sonia took a few minutes to warm up to Erin, but then they became good buddies.

We met Erin, Carla, and Carla's 12-week-old son (Charlie) at the arboretum.  Erin had read my blog posts about practically living at the arboretum, and Carla is relatively new to the area, so they were curious to visit the arboretum for the first time.  Sonia and I took them to a special place-- the first spot that she and I ever picnicked together (with the Murrays, of course).  Sonia took it upon herself to be a clown and walk around with one foot in a purse and one foot in her camera case (custom-made for her by Auntie Niki out of Richard Scarry's Busytown fabric!!).

Charlie is a handsome little dude!  He has a hilarious hairdo at the moment and looks a bit cranky in this picture (but the crankiness is due to my bad photography timing because he was completely adorable and pleasant for the entire outing!).

Erins!!!!!!!!!!!  We used to call each other "Erin 1" and "Erin 2".  I was #1 because I was older, of course.

Sonia did her fair share of acting like a total and complete wackadoodle.  Here she is singing some made-up songs at Zach's tree.

Carla and Charlie seemed to like the arboretum a lot, and I hope they will be frequent visitors in the future!

It was so great to see you, Erin!!  You are just as wonderful as I remembered you to be.  I hope we don't go another 15 years before we see each other again.  Lovely to meet you & Charlie, too, Carla!