A Plum Dandi Meeting...Finally!

Nearly 3 years ago, I met one of my best friends online.
 Over the years I've met many great women online and established a lot of great relationships that have moved from one social media source to the other, but none have been as close as the friendship that I have with my friend Alica.
 When my husband and I moved to Wisconsin a few years back, I picked up knitting as a hobby to keep my mind off of the family I was missing back home. Within about a year, I began designing small items (most of which did not have any serious technique and some that didn't even include more than one size). It was one of these designs, The Heathcliff Vest that brought us together.

Alicia's daughter happened to be just the age to fit the one size I had written the pattern for and Alicia (who was already designing a bit on her own by modifying my pattern a bit) emailed me asking if it was okay to link her modified project to my pattern page.

We got to talking back and forth a bit, a little about our kids, a little about our faith in God and found that we had a lot in common.  Within 2 weeks of our first conversation, we found that we were soon to have even more in common as we both discovered our second pregnancies within 1 week of each other!  It was meant to be!
It was wonderful having a friend to chat back and forth with through the journey of pregnancy...one who was experiencing so many of the same things that I was (oh the cravings, oh the cramping, what color are you painting the room...which cloth diapers are you using?)  We both joined the January 2011 Mommies group on Ravelry where we met even more wonderful friends.

Alicia's little Ellie

My little Evellyn (Evie)

After our daughters were born, Alicia was wanting to delve further designing and we began bouncing ideas off of each other about shapes, textures, and overall concepts.
We were finding that helping each other out and working as a team was really working for us.  The saying that two heads is better than one really is true!
 In the spring of 2012, we co-designed a matching mother and daughter pattern for Petite Purls called Albatross.
 We now talk every day, about 10 times a day, about everything and anything, from knitting, to homeschooling; from dinner to laundry.
  We are frequently asked how we "do it" because I think most people imagine that would be easy to become competitive.   But that's just it.  There is zero competition between us and  I think that it is largely in part to our shared faith and mutual encouragement of each other and genuine happiness in each others successes.  Aside from the simple fact that it is a great feeling to see your friends succeed, when you work together, each individual success is ultimately the success of the team.
 With that in mind, it makes sense to share new "finds" with each other, to tackle new techniques together and promote each other whenever we can.  AND IT'S FUN!  Have you ever seen, or experienced something really great, only to think..."if only so and so could see this..it would even be better..."  That's how we work!
Okay, so all of this history brings me to the actual purpose of this post.   This past week Alicia and I actually met for the first time!
My family and I packed up and headed out from the Midwest, to the East.  It was wonderful!
As is totally expected, Alicia and I both wondered if things would be awkward, but of course, we just got together and laughed our heads off the entire time.

Awkward?  I think not.

Here are some photos of the journey and of the times we all spent together!

Pit stop at Niagra Falls, NY

It's always a bonus when the hubs get along too!

Pirate day!

Friends from before birth

At Fort Williams

Our wonderful hosts, Dan and Alicia

Sometimes the photo doesn't even need a caption....

Alicia's dog Cooper....enjoying hand drawn eyebrows.

And finally, we made a fun workout video for our fiber friends that I think best illustrates the amount of fun we had.