Rachel to my Monica
- Helena
- May 7, 2020
- 6 min read
Today is one of my favorite days of the year.

It's the day that my soul sister was born! ALSO the one day a year that I can brag and flaunt her like nobodies business and it's praised because it's her birthday!
This girl. She's seriously the greatest human ever. Her heart is exploding with love for everything and everyone, always. TBH I think the only animal I've watched her inflict pain on was a mosquito (it totally had it coming). She surprises people with small gestures that can change anyone's day around. I treasure her hugs more than anything and with quarantine happening - I miss them SO SO MUCH.
Let's share the dish. Here are only THIRTY-FIVE of my favorite Tressa Tales that have a special place in my heart.
1. We were 15, just got back from Water Works (classy 15+ night club). We were in her apartment I listened to her chat with a boy on the phone who she met on instant messenger I think? I fell asleep, woke up the next morning to her STILL talking to him. What was his name? Charlie or something? Chuck? Jim? Tyler? I can't remember for the life of me!
2. Saturday morning WWE fights. I never got into wrestling, but Tressa died for it. After a night out, we always watched it together and she would actually scream at the TV and was SO into it!
3. We went shopping any chance we could. Never could afford to buy anymore than a lipgloss, but never-the-less loved to walk around and dream. When we came out of walmart, some guy had purchased flowers and laid them on her car with a super sweet note about how gorgeous she is and how she deserved flowers. It was the sweetest gesture ever!
4. Most mornings before school we would meet up together to get ready. We would blare music, do our hair+makeup, and have early morning dance sessions.
5. When we went to parties, we shared Mikes Hard Lemonade. I remember this one party where we decided that day we were smokers. Marlboro Reds @ that. We chain smoked the whole night and got lit up and giddy from it. The next day was more miserable than a night of drinking Mikes.
6. After partying it up, we would crash in Tre's living room and binge watch movies (Love and Basketball or Dirty Dancing were our go-to's). We would order pizza from Pizza Pub and our friend Tyler would always draw us super funny illustrations usually about the night before.
7. One time when I got grounded from drinking, I couldn't go anywhere besides my living room couch @ my cabin. Tressa showed up with my favorite blizzard and we spent the night watching movies and laughing.
8. When we were seniors in HS, Tressa came with my family to Florida over New Years. We have many many memories from that trip. One of my favorite though was when we decided to deck ourselves out as mummies in TP. Ironic that toilet paper is hard to come by these days. If we only knew then...
9. Wine + US = ALWAYS a good time. Thinking about how dumb we are makes me stupid-smile. One night in particular included army crawling, her parents campground, and too much homemade wine. The night ended with laying on a dock talking about life and belly laughing until we couldn't breathe.
10. On a regular Friday mall run, we were leaving and two pimps (I would like to say I'm joking, but I'm not) tried picking us up. They were completely covered in over-sized fur coats, gold teeth, gold chains, and pimp hats. Luckily we have fake names that we hand out to the crazies.
11. Every year before school we would meet up with our cars at her parents campground and clean them out and wash the outside. It was a signature staple to use newspaper to wipe off the windows - nothing else.
12. Tressa is the only person that I know who would let a stranger in her car because of her giant heart. She did once and I had to share a backseat with him. He smelled and lived much further away then he let on. THANKFULLY, I think she learned her lesson since we never let in another hitch-hiker after that.
13. We used to meet boys on the highway. No Joke. We each had a paper plate in our glove box with our cell phone number on it and would hold it up when we would see cute boys. Met a couple cuties back in the day.
14. We were HAYDAYS sign-holding-buddies. We used to wave in traffic to park at my dads old business shop. I can't believe we wore what we did and got away with it; our daughters are only allowed to wear turtlenecks.
15. Saints Baseball Opening Games were a yearly regular meet-up. We went for the beer and freebies.
16. Almost every wedding (well, besides probably 2) we have cried at. Some more than others, but we gush at all the details and cry happy tears over the love.
17. I hold near and dear the moments our babies were born and hearing their first cries! I also cherish the understanding that we both steered clear of the others "who-ha's" during deliveries.
18. It could be a Tuesday, Sunday, Thanksgiving. It doesn't matter when we call the other and say "HEY. Will you take pictures of my family today?" It's always a given - "ABSOLUTELY!" answer.
19. When we were 16 and you had your red GrandAM, but no good speaker system, we woke up at 2AM to go stand in line @ Best Buy to get a pioneer CD player. This started our traditional Black Friday shopping shenanigans.
20. Going back to when we were 9, I remember practicing cartwheels on the playground.
21. We're practicing witches. Well, sort of. In HS for a girl-party, we decided to try light as a feather. I think we may have watched The Craft one too many times.
22. When the Minnesota State Fair came around, we would go almost every day. Sometimes leaving and then even coming back for the tail end of it. Usually walking around and watching for cute boys ;)
23. Waking up @ the ass-crack of dawn to watch a royal wedding of William/Kate and Harry/Meghan. Texting the other @ 4AM commenting on dresses made it all worth it.
24. RAVING together! Doing the electric 5k at the state fair grounds was so fun, and the rave and beer afterwards were even funner.
25. We were too cheap to get our hair done. It was much smarter and efficient to be each others hair stylist. Perming your hair and coloring mine through a pull-cap made MUCH more sense.
26. Army crawling through ditches spying on boys was something you never questioned, instead hysterically laughed with me the whole time; even when the dog started chasing us.
27. One time we double dated to a movie called Death Day. Rated R, so we thought we would be amongst adults. We ended up in a crowed room of all super underage kids and actually getting put in our place by a 13yo on his first date. I guess we shouldn't have asked where his parents were.
28. In our 20's, we used to take annual girls trips to Florida and stay at my parents condo. We would think of really fun things to do and one was a winery festival. Long story short, we bought a ton of their "winery blueberry bucks" and then ended up getting cut off and kicked out. Whoops!
29. This girl is my karaoke buddy no matter where we go. She'll never turn down a song and will rock it like her own every time. Remember being in Florida and having zero clue to the words SHOOP?
30. ALWAYS-ALWAYS-ALWAYS the best listening ear. I can't pin-point the one time because there are way way too many.
31. One time we decided to take the kids to a park and while the kids were running around, Tressa pulled out a Summer Shandy for me. We toasted to being cool moms hah.
32. Girls Florida trip nights that were spent having happy hour on the beach talking for hours and taking useless pictures.
33. On Tressa's wedding day, we all (Nick, I, LD, and Her) all carpooled back to the hotel. LD drove and we swung through Taco Bell's drive thru. I can only imagine what the people thought seeing a bride in the front seat!
34. AXE THROWING Triple Date Night! SUCH a fun night. So many laughs with friends and that damn lady that couldn't understand anything we were saying. What was her name? Martha?
35. All the white shoes - always. $5 from Walmart and lasted like 2 weeks, IF that. For some reason, we always had to stock up on them! Once they got dirty, we would have to get a new pair. Obviously we never thought to clean them. ha.
I have SO many memories that I could go on and on, but I won't. This beautiful lady deserves all of the praise in the world today and as many air hugs as you can send her. I could burst into tears at any given moment when I sit back and truly think about how lucky I am to have her in my life. Everyone wants and needs a best-friend in their life like mine and I'm SO happy that I found her throughout all of life's chaos.
Tressa, you are absolutely AMAZING. I love you SO much!!!
XO
Helena
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