Sometimes it is interesting to me to think about how much of the plot line of my life would not have been possible in a time before air travel, long-distance telephone lines, the Internet, or the U.S. Postal Service. Really big things would be missing, like my husband, who I first started getting to know via email. (It wasn't as weird as it sounds, I promise, but that's a story for another time.)

And then there are these girls. Because we all went to a summer camp in Horn Creek, Colorado when I was 15, these ladies have been my friends for 12 years now, and the vast majority of our relationships have been conducted via letter, phone, and, in more recent years, group emails. One theory on why we're still close is the potential for blackmail. Think about it: Anyone would be well-advised to keep close tabs on people they wrote long letters to in the ninth grade, since at any given time, those people could choose to post your adolescent ramblings on the Internet if they felt slighted by you in some way. We've dug some of those letters up and read them aloud to the sounds of hysterical laughter on more than one occasion when we've gotten together as adults. You couldn't make up anything more side-splittingly melodramatic if you tried. There are lots of exclamation points. But that's not the main reason we're still in touch. It's just that we really love each other, and we've made a large effort over the years to stay in one another's lives, and that has brought with it tremendous blessing.

This week, it also meant that I was the recipient of a baby-shower-by-mail. The girls all sent gifts, and Rebecca sent me a packet of streamers and balloons to hang and treats to eat while I opened my gifts. It sounds silly, but my first connections to these people started to grow from written words in envelopes that would come to me in the mail, so in a way, it was almost more fitting that that was also how they celebrated the upcoming arrival of my first child. Not that I'd turn down the chance to have them all in the room to open the gifts. But it didn't feel any less natural to be looking at the postmarks from Washington, D.C., Nebraska, North Carolina, and even Scotland and thinking about how my friends all put these gifts in their envelopes and sent them off with so much love and care in places so far away from here. They've been doing that for me for years, and I'm so thankful.

So here are a few pictures from my long-distance shower. First, the pile of mail I got.

Charity made these great "Official Horn Creek Baby Shower" labels that were on all the gifts so that I would know to set the gifts aside until they all arrived. Notice how I have draped myself in the pink streamers.

And here is the absolute haul of stuff that we got for Kate. Never let it be said that I don't have incredibly generous friends. Especially since this counts as the third baby shower I've been given in this pregnancy!

It will be a year before I see these girls again, since our usual lakehouse Labor Day get-together has been pre-empted by some conflicting travel plans and, oh yes, the fact that I conveniently managed to be due to have a baby on Labor Day this year. But I know that when we do get together next, it will be like we never left summer camp. It always is. Girls, I hope my daughter one day makes a few friends like you.