Our birthday.

NOTE: Blogger is mad at me because apparently I have used up all of my pic space and now I have to pay $2.50/month to upload more pics. I am planning on doing this, but I can't bring myself to commit yet. So, this post doesn't have as many pics as I wanted to include. Boo. I will stop being cheap soon and upload some more soon. 

Our (mine & Nicole's) birthday was last month & Brandon, A & I drove up to surprise her. We haven't spent our birthday together in years! Because we both have been teachers for the past decade, we haven't been able to just take off to hang out. August is an intense time for education, there is no sitting down, much less days off. Anyway, she was surprised and thanked me for coming. I kept trying to explain that it was my birthday, too, so it was like my present to myself. It was such a great day. 

Tubing with my bug. 

I love random shots that really capture life. 

I'm totally going to pretend this is me with Anderson (it's Nicole) and use it as my new profile pic on Facebook.

Captain Hughes. He is the one who helped plan the day because my contribution consisted of texting him & asking if we could come up for the day. He is the one who organized all 3 meals, the boat, bought A a fishing pole, etc. 

Really tried to get a pic of the 2 of them. Hilarious. Lily was the typical teacher's pet & kept smiling very intensely. Anderson was a typical 2 year old & kept standing up thinking he heard an airplane. 

First time fishing-he caught one!!

Love these two. 

I gave Nicole a book (that I totally read first. Again, it was sort of my bday present,too) called, "One & the Same." A journalist who is an identical twin did a lot of research about twins. It was pretty interesting. Here are a few of my favorite parts/quotes: 

 "Being an identical twin—I can’t speak for fraternals—is intense. It’s all the clichés: feeling like you have an unwavering partner in life, knowing exactly what another person feels, wanting to tell her a story before anyone else, confiding with unrestrained—sometimes shocking—candor, valuing her opinion above anyone else’s, taking on someone else’s pain to the point of vicarious depression, being incapacitated by any minor dispute."

(ha ha, so true. We literally live each other's lives.)

I'm too lazy to type all of this, but in one chapter she interviewed Ronde & Tiki Barber (identical twin NFL players) and it was hilarious. Ronde said he never measured incomes." If Tiki made more than me, he took care of me. Same for me with him. We will do that forever. I know that to be a fact." (When Nicole & I worked at Sonic (Shout out to Shannon!!) we would balance our tip money at the end of the day, so that we each left with the same amount. We seriously did it every day without even questioning it. We are the only example of socialism actually working.)

 Tiki was later asked if it bothered him that Ronde had a Super Bowl Ring and Tiki responded, "It was the greatest moment of pride that I have ever felt. Cynics will say, 'Oh, your're jealous', but those same people have no idea what we have.'" (When good things happen to Nicole I am usually the one crying with happiness (along with mom, of course) and vice versa.

"What I find most moving is that her children & mine have the same DNA, which makes them not cousins by half siblings. There's a potency in that, as if our twin connection is sealed in our sons's & daughter's bodies." (Sounds a little creepy, but how cool is this? I mean, really.Plus, Anderson & Lily look so much alike, so there's that...sarcasm)

If you're thinking, "I bet it would be so great to have an identical twin, " you're wrong. Great is a word to describe your day or a snack, not the deepest, most indescribable because words really aren't enough kind of relationship that we have. The single most shaping factor of my life is the fact that my genetic identical was born 4 minutes after me. We knew each other before we met our own mother and there are some things that exist without being able to explain them. For all the moms out there, imagine how you feel about your kids. How the instant they were born you became a different person because of the bond you now shared with them. That is the best way to describe what we have because it is one of those things that you can never understand unless you are a part of it. Anyway, enough rambling. It was such a  fun day!!