Growing up, I had a group of 8 girl friends. Most of them I met when I was 8 years old meaning I’ve known them for about 2/3rds of my life! Since 2nd grade, we were the BFGs which doesn’t stand for big friendly giants (my friend are mostly 5’2 petite Asians :P). It used to stand for Bay Farm Girls since we grew up on a little island called Bay Farm Island…but sometimes it stands for Big F**king Group because I admit, if you meet all 8 of us at once, we are all pretty big personalities so it feels like there are 20 people around 🙂

Anyways, for July 4th weekend, we all met up for a girls’ trip to Paso Robles (I will post a separate post with my winery recommendations) which got me thinking about this special friendship. Since it’s been roughly 20 years together, we’ve gone through a lot of milestones together. We had the good (birthdays, graduations, first kisses), the bad (breakups, family fights) and the ugly (hello, bad fashion choices!) but we did it all together which made all the difference. Of course, we weren’t together this whole time since we all went to different universities. A few of us have moved to the east coast or internationally, yet distance doesn’t stop us from getting together every Christmas for Secret Santa. Even if we can’t all physical be there, we make the effort to FaceTime 🙂 And we have group chats, snapchats and emails flying back and forth…it’s like the modern version of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants…even though I doubt we could all fit the same pair of pants since I’m like 5 inches taller 😛

We’ve all been blessed to have made other friends outside of the group too, but there is something special about friends who’ve done life with you. Through the awkward middle school phase of braces, crushes on older boys, playing imaginary princesses and ponies, slam books and mean girls. God knows we’ve been through it all and are still navigating the just as awkward young adult (is it still young adult if we’re closer to 30?!!) stage of figuring out what we want to be when we grow up and “is he the one?” Soon we’ll be settling down (or maybe not so soon? Only God knows haha) and we’ll probably not be able to talk or hang out as often, but I know these girls will be in my life forever.

There are friends for a season, friends for a reason and friends for a lifetime. These girls aren’t any of these three because I realize on this trip, it’s not just a friendship. The BFGs are my sisters. We have bickered, we have fought, we have cried, we have celebrated and we have cheered each other through the awkward, the sad and the happy and I’m so thankful. So this post is really a love letter to the BFGs that I’m thankful for each and every one of you. I am excited to see what more life we will do together! And seriously, let’s do more girl trips because I need an excuse to make baked brie & drink wine xo

ps BFGs, don’t hate me for posting some of these “old school/slightly embarrassing” photos! We were on trend back then…I think? 😛