for laura dear

matt gave me a ski trip for christmas. we scheduled the trip 2 months ago for last week. it seemed like such the wrong time to go. i am transitioning out of my old job at work into a new job at work, as well as right in the middle of other junctures. matt's grandfather was admitted to the hospital the day we left. his grandmother was admitted while we were gone. regardless, we had committed to it, so went west as planned. selfishly, it was just what we needed.

this is a long story short narrative of why we went, who we went with and what we went there to see.
matt and i met each other in 7th grade because of a common friend, stuart. matt and i found each other (and then fell in love) 17 years later because of our common friend stuart's mom, laura.
my friendship with stuart dates back to 1979 or so, when our mothers started a playgroup for their 4 year olds, called "class of 93". shift 5, 10, 15 and now 28 years later, and there are plenty of stories about our friendship in different stages of our lives. he was and is a friend that a girl would classify and love and respect as brother.
matt almost literally grew up at stuart's house in grade school. matt and stuart have done most things in their life together, a good part of things apart in the past years, and now more recently, together again.
matt and i both, in very separate and unique ways, have always been connected to stuart's mom, laura. laura has always been matt's friend, not stuart's mom. as for my relationship with laura: as my dad has always said, "carrie and laura are neither right brained or left brained." really there's no way to explain our friendship, other than we don't have to utter a word for the other to know what the thought is.
2 years ago, laura met the love of her life. she left her old kentucky home. (her home was just as lovely as the real old ky home.... and i forgot to mention that she was matt's and my next door neighbor on top of all of the other history..)
anyway, she left her old kentucky home and went west to durango.
so we spent the last 5 days with stuart and his precious wife jen, laura and her love walter dear.

we went to bed early some nights, stayed up late talking on others.
we sat on the couches...listened to matt play songs he has composed on the piano and listened to walt play AWAY concertos and other classics.

we had an amazing southern brunch at deanie's house, the dear's neighbor. everyone in durango has a baby grand in a window looking out at the mountains. so at deanie's, walter played the piano more, and this round, i played the violin with him. i have known mr. dear remotely my whole life, but never knew he was a prodigy.

we spent 2 days skiing and snowboarding.




crazy cool medallions....
we spent most of the trip laughing uncontrollably at stuart and matt, as they recited all the comedies they memorized together when they were little.

matt designed his first pair of jeans several months ago. he has worn them every day since october, in order to wear them in naturally. a creek runs behind the dear's house, so matt washed his jeans for the first time in the creek.
before/never washed:


really... our trip to durango was just about all of the things that have kept us all tangled together for almost 30 years. and that is laura dear.

dear laura dear.
with our love always,
carrie and matt