Best Friends

We consider ourselves pretty fortunate in the friends department.  My husband has had many of his friends since high school, as have I.  We also have a whole set of friends (or "family" as we call them) that share our obsession with drag racing.  We also have some AWESOME neighbors and I think we live on the BEST street in our neighborhood, we really do, we have people that sell their house in our neighborhood to buy houses on our street.  One of our best friends, hubby has know since high school, lived a few streets away and they sold their house and have now moved across the street from us.  In the summer we can always be found in one of the backyards grilling up dinner.  Some of the best times ever.  Every year for Christmas I try to give them a family gift.  It gets hard because they have a teenage son (from a previous relationship that doesn't live with them full time) and a young daughter.  One thing they always do when they are together is cook as a family.  I wanted to do something to go along with that so I decide to make the girls aprons and the guys chef jackets.  I looked into a pattern for the chef jacket but decided to just buy them from a restaurant supplier and modify them.  It seemed more cost effective.  I purchased the jackets from www.restaurantdiscountwarehouse.com.  I was really happy with the quality, price and they shipped quickly.  I modified them by changing the inside of the cuff to match the contrasting fabric on the aprons and monogrammed their initials on the pockets.  For the girls I made them matching aprons from a pattern I already had on hand. 

In addition to the aprons & jackets I wanted to get them a cookbook.  I thought and thought about it and kept thinking about one time when we were having dinner and Randy started telling us about Kim trying to cook southern food but tried to modify it so it was healthier and Randy told her she needed to leave the southern cooking alone.  I found the perfect cookbook.  Even the color of it worked.

They LOVED them.  I stressed so much over finding the perfect gift for our friends because they would do and have done everything for us.  We are truly blessed to have them in our lives and that they are just a few steps away across the street is even better.  I can not tell you how often we call to borrow, milk or eggs.  I never call Kim for milk though, she will only have Coconut milk.  Gotta love her.