Generational Friendship | Water Street Dreams Chicago photographer | Chicago family photographer

"A good friend knows as all your stories.
A great friend helped you write them."
*author unknown

Friendship.

I'm convinced its a gift

straight from the heart of God.

He knows we need each other.

He just does.

And we do need each other, right?

Friendship comes in so many different packages.

Childhood friends.

Brand new friends.

Finish each other's sentences friends.

Friends you meet in crisis

or just because you happened to be at the same place at the same time.

Or ...

because your mamas are best friends.

College friends.

First job friends.

Friends with the same-aged kids.

PTO friends and soccer mom friends.

Friends with common interests

and those where not much is common

yet you were plopped into each other's lives 

for a beautiful reason yet to be determined.

All are colorful treasures

that make up this thing called friendship.

And on any given day

I see time spent with a friend,

whether through text, over coffee

or strolling alongside a flowerbed as 

purely delightful.

These two friends that happen to be each others' besties

 are some of those 'just a bit younger than me' gals that 

I've had on my radar for years.

You know the type, right?

You get a little bit of interaction with them and you think

"I'd be fast friends with her. 

We just think alike and I don't even know her!

She's a spitfire. I think we might have been separated from birth!

She decorates in the same color, we must be friends!"

Well, that was these two!

Talk about groovy.

And thoughtful.

And fun.

And just the type I want to hang out with.

So imagine my delight when they said yes to

hanging out at the Chicago Botanic Gardens

with their little girls,

while we chatted and snapped a few photos along the way.

Adoption.

Refugees.

Parenting.

Marriage.

It's amazing what you can pack into a few hours

of chit-chatting!

Ellen and Kristin,

my hope is that your little gals become 

those decades-old, childhood friends

who walk alongside either other

through the messy and the mundane.

I'm pretty confident they're gonna be best friends forever!

Here's to beautiful friendship on this bright sunny Tuesday!