The Boston Girls, reunited

Boston. The first city I ever fell for, hard. A weekend with my best girls from college, starting now, doing nothing but cracking each other up and remembering when. Thank goodness for our nerdy-as-hell-but-whatever-that's-just-who-we-are Honors Dorm, where I met three kick-ass girls that will forever and always be "The Boston Girls" to me: A, T, and N.

Please admire the late-'90s dorm decor

Oh boy.

We parted ways with the dorm after freshman year, much to the dismay of the 5,000 mice that liked to keep us company. Our chief accomplishment over the next few years was developing a widespread reputation as The Girls Who Throw Fantastic Halloween Parties. (We also figured out that whole hair and styling thing, too.) (Thank goodness.)

And it was Boston. We cheered on the Sox. We cheered on the marathon runners (including A herself, years later). We cheered on a certain local movie, shown here on a Southie marquee during the St. Patty's Day Parade.

We also cheered on this guy during spring break in Cancun.

And then we graduated, but not before one last throw-down at The Squealing Pig, the neighborhood bar where we congregated every Thursday for years.

We spread out across the country, but there were visits. The girls came out to see me in New Mexico. I went back east for THIS AMAZING EVENT OMG I WATCHED IT LAST NIGHT TO GET IN THE MOOD AND I STILL CRY AND GET CHILLS. One summer, we spent a week on the Outer Banks - the last week we'd ever spend together as single girls. I'd just met this guy and couldn't stop talking about him, even though I assured the ladies it wasn't going anywhere. Riiiiiiight, they all said.

And before we knew it, T got married. Hurricane Ernesto decided her picture-perfect Buffalo lakefront scene wasn't happening, and so we had the best garage party wedding of all time instead. So. Much. Fun. My all-time weirdest come-on happened at T's wedding: a guy asked if he could bathe me. Seriously.

A couple months later, N got married, and we headed back to Boston to be her ladies in brown.

N was the visionary who made gritty urban wedding photography a thing, I'm telling you.

And here we are with our gritty attitudes a little later. This shot cracks me up every time.

We surprised N in Boston for her 30th birthday the next year, and I finally brought that guy I'd been talking about at the beach for them to approve. They did.

For the next two years, we had individual visits, or 3/4 visits, but never all of us at once, until this.

And now, we have this weekend. N has a two-year-old boy. T has a one-year-old boy. A is engaged. And I'm me. And life is so very good with these three in it.