I have a little sister named Janice. We grew up ignoring each other or trying very hard to get the other in trouble. Or I should say she tried. Janice was an expert at getting me in trouble for doing absolutely nothing. One time she must have been in a bad mood because when I walked by her on the stairs and smiled and patted her shoulder in a very friendly, sisterly manner, she gave me the look of death and walked calmly and deliberately down the stairs. When she reached the bottom step, she smirked at me and then with every ounce of energy she possessed, she screamed bloody murder that I was beating her.

I was severely punished, and yet in awe of her power.

When she was about two years older she made another attempt to get me in hot water by writing on my bedroom door in teal Crayola marker the words, “Leah’s Room”. My mother saw it and she was not pleased. She stared at me, stared at the handwriting and then very quickly realized that it was far too neat to be my ten year old self’s handwriting. It had to belong to my six year old sister. Ha!

Jan and I grew up and right when she turned into an interesting person, I turned into an adult and ran off to college, and then to marriage and motherhood. We spoke on the phone a bit, but not much. I like my sister. We just never had much in common.

Then she turned into an adult and married a Brit and ran away to jolly old England. All it took was the phone calls turning into $20’s a pop and suddenly we just can’t stop calling each other (yes, we both got very reasonable international plans. $2 a minute is INSANE AT&T. This is not the dark ages, this is the 21st century. Calls should be cheap).

All this calling back and forth and e-mailing quickly took my sister and turned her into my best friend, so how lucky was I to have her come all the way from England to visit me? For ten days we played. We went to every scrapbook store in a 60 mile radius. We went to a crop. We saw movies. We went to the temple. We hung out and totally enjoyed each other’s company, and I was so sad to see her go. Why in the world won’t the Air Force station us in England?

It had been three years since we saw each other. That is way too long, and sadly, the reality when you live on different continents and plane tickets are upwards of a grand. I’m still hoping it won’t be that long again.

Luv ya, Sanisi!