the ethel to my lucy.

Dear Reader,
It says in the scriptures to love thy neighbor as thyself. Whenever I hear this I immediately think of the cute pink house next door, and the brilliant 20 year old girl who lives there. Earlier this week she dedicated an absolutely beautiful post to me on her blog, and I would feel ungrateful if I didn't return the gesture.

Shauntel Ledora "Butterfingers" Byron, as I like to call her, has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. As little girls we pretended to be mermaids, ran numerous lemonade stands, became obsessed with the 80's, and had a secret club house that consisted of a hammock and a stump between our backyards. I treasure these innocent memories. As we grew into awkward preteens we came up with a motto- "We're freaks, we were made for each other." And right we were...

Our true natures came out at Girl's Camp, and those are by far my best memories with Shaunzi!

Shaunzi's always supported my copious amount of boy obsessions, and the drama that comes with it. She got excited for my happy moments, and comforted me in my sad ones. This picture is us at my boyfriend's track meet at 7 in the morning...what a pal :)

High school had it's ups and downs, but our bond only grew stronger because of it. Shaunzi was my go-to for everything. At times we were inseparable, and other times we knew we needed our space, but loved each other all the same. Oh, and we remained freaks.

As Shaunzi mentioned, the last few months of her senior year (my junior year) we hit a fork in the road and went our separate ways completely; barely speaking to each other. My heart had never felt so broken. At the time it seemed like the end of the world for me, but as usual it was a blessing in disguise. I learned how to really depend on God during my trials, and I ended up making a lot of new friends that summer. Shaunzi made tremendous leaps of her own at Utah State, and made the greatest friends in the world. The fates realigned the next spring, and the duo was back in business! Good thing too, because this is what was becoming of me without her...

Summer 2010 was a blast! We more than made up for lost time.

Then my time finally came to join her at USU. I had my doubts about remaining as close to her as I was, but God knew we needed each other. So besties we remained! And she graciously shared her incredible group of friends with me. I learned a lot more about her by being around them. Our crazy adventures of late nights, dance parties, Zumba, random drives, and of course Cafe Rio continued to bless our lives.

I can't thank Heavenly Father enough for allowing Shaunzi to be such a big part of my life. She is one of the only people that can bring out the emotional side of Samantha. She keeps me in check and constantly reminds me that I am of great worth. She tells me I'm pretty when I think I'm not, and tells me I'm hot when I know I am! I would rather spend time with her than almost anyone else. I used thesaurus.com to find a better word than FUN to sum up our relationship. Interestingly enough one of the synonyms was DIVERTING. So I decided that's our word. It not only means to provide enjoyment, it means to change course. I think Shaunzi and I have done our fair share of changing courses, but our paths can't help but cross. And I know they will continue crossing for the rest of our lives. I have the greatest best friend in the whole world. Go ahead and be jealous Reader.

~The slightly-softened-but-still-sarcastic-Swampman