My cousin's having a baby.

Chelsey, my cousin, is having a baby. 

This is no small deal in my book. 

[and it's obviously a huge deal in her book, too!]

Her baby shower is today.

Witness me [on the left] clutching on to the side of the pool for dear life...

 forcing a smile even though I'm pretty positive my life vest will fail me

 and allow me to drown in the [most likely] fairly shallow end of the pool.

Witness Chelsey, swimming carefree... 

and, most likely, repeatedly telling me 

"you have on a life vest, you won't drown, I promise". 

Duh.

For most of our lives we've been nsync with one another [or maybe a couple steps within either direction, of one another]. She's only 3 months older than me and it didn't matter where she lived (east coast or west coast) we spent so much time together I don't think I realized California was so far away from Massachusetts.

When she finally lived "close by" [a.k.a. 2 hours away in CT] we spent every waking minute together or on the phone [legit]. When she moved back to California, I was right there along side her, we visited each other often and eventually I moved there, too, for a bit.

Take a look:

    

We've been through lots. Between family, friends, summer camps, passing time, school, different coasts, different interests, the internet, concerts, relationships, travels, college, growing up, engagements, planning weddings, graduating nursing school [all her], becoming a teacher [that's me], engagement parties, bridal showers, buying a house [her!], moving a lot [me!], getting married, and becoming adults... life is never boring.

...But now, there's a baby shower.

& a baby to follow.

Woah.

And for that, I would have to say that I am still the one in the photo above... 

wearing a life vest, and clutching on for dear life
-- in the [slightly] deeper end of the pool.

And I'm waiting for Chelsey to report back to me 

about her new adventure and say,

"take off the life vest, you won't drown, I promise."