We just returned from one of our favorite summer rituals, a drive down to Orange County to spend the afternoon with my husband David’s oldest friend, Kareem and his lovely family. David and Kareem have maintained their friendship from elementary school) when they lived on the same street, the one where David’s father and Kareem’s mother still live today. A kind-hearted, sweet and talented man, Kareem met his match in Dawn, a gorgeous, thoughtful and caring woman who he married over 25 years ago. Together they have produced three amazing kids – Adam, who is 25, and his sisters, Amanda and Ashley, 18 year-old twins.

The drive is long and today it was a steamy 100+ degrees out, – but it is always worth it to share their company on a Sunday afternoon in their beautiful home and in the pool close by their home. Typically we float about in the water catching up on another year of life, checking in on work, family and health and marveling at the amazing changes in each other’s kids. When I first met Adam, he had just become a teenager. Now he’s a dashing young man completing his Master’s in Psychology. The girls were younger than our son Theo, and now they are talented, beautiful and freshly graduated from high school. Although they are so much older than Theo and David and I are just their parents’ friends, all three of their kids have been friendly, polite and sociable over the years – something quite remarkable since we’ve known them mostly as teenagers. Today, Adam joined is for a while in the pool. Typically the girls have splashed around with us too, but today they were enjoying their last day of summer vacation with friends before they start their local community college tomorrow. I left a gift for them with Dawn – a bag full of girly goodies that hopefully they can enjoy – some make-up, nail polish, lollipops and the like – as they embark on the next stage of their journey as the strong, impressive young women they already are.

At the end of the afternoon, as the strong California sun gradually sank behind the trees, I watched Kareem tossing Theo around in the pool and enjoyed Dawn’s stories about their kids and hoped that during these annual visits with them, some of their talent and warmth as parents rubs off on me in the pool…