I scream. . .

A first at the Sprick household tonight: homemade ice cream. One word.

Delicious.

We are having our small group over tomorrow night for a "social event". That is the official title. It made me think of my favorite family with which to be social--the DenBleyker Clan.

I. Love. Them. Let me explain.

When I was just a little girl, my parents and the DenBleyker parents found each other. They loved each other. They were best friends all around. Though they moved to Lynden, WA when I was in the seventh grade (oh the tears!) we have all remained friends through the years. How you ask? A great foundation. Our parents were first of all committed to God, then to each other, and then to their kids.

The DenBleykers had two girls and two boys. So did the Koemans. Twelve people who together were one mighty group. We didn't just do "stuff". We created stuff. We had beach parties. We ate hamburgers during a rain storm in a Jay's potato truck. We made the coolest sand castles--so much so that we were in the newspaper. We ate the best homemade bread from the best moms (ours). We created games in our basement which we thought were so clever. We worshiped together and had great prayer times. We worked many hours stacking wood at their house. We sampled perfumes and sent cassette tapes to each other through the mail when we were apart. They taught us how to play parchese and we taught them all kinds of dress up games in our basement. We wandered Victory Alaska together for a summer. I'm not sure how us kids got along so very well, but we just did. Our parents also thought of fun things to do for Christmas parties. Why buy gifts when you can experience new things? We pulled taffy, we made chocolates, and you guessed it. . we made ice cream.

So, I called Mama Koeman and asked if she still had the hand crank ice cream machine. She did. You know how you pull something out from your past and memories just flood over you? Well, I'm being flooded. It has been almost 30 years since I've used that machine. We Spricks made ice cream tonight so that we could practice for tomorrow night. I have no idea what recipe my folks used. Thanks goodness for the internet! The kids loved turning the crank---for the first five minutes. I laughed as I'm sure us Koeman and DenBleyker kids did the same thing. I do remember our dads--Dan and Vern--turning the crank last as it got so thick.

It has been fun and sad to pull out this machine. I miss my friends. We still celebrate each other's lives (look at my comments: Lori and Traci are right with me!) thanks to the internet. We get together as big families every five years, although we often see them more often as they still have family here in Michigan. As adults we've gotten cottages and done Whistler Mountain together. It is awesome to have a group of people who you aren't related to. . . and then to call them family. They are my other parents, my other siblings.

I'll be making ice cream tomorrow night, making new memories with that very old machine. It'll be fun and I'll laugh a ton and hope that my friends like the taste. Tonight--well tonight I'm remembering old friends. I love and miss you. The next time we visit together, maybe we could have some ice cream.