When Ryan and I moved to St. Louis one of the things that excited me most was the cute little coffee shop across the street, Fiddlehead Fern Cafe. I had never lived in an area that had so many small businesses in the area and loved the idea of popping across the street for a latte and a sweet treat. The sweetest treat was the most unexpected, our new friendship with Laura and Kelli. We met Laura pretty quickly at the cafe, because as soon as we brought our puppy to Fiddlehead, Laura busted out the back door and cuddled Pierogi on the floor. They had a connection that we couldn’t understand, but just about every dog is drawn to Laura. Later on that year we asked Laura if she would dog sit Pierogi for us while we attended a friend’s wedding in Washington DC. She accepted without hesitation!

Fast forward we met Laura’s girlfriend Kelli at our 2024 New Year’s Eve party and have hung out nearly every week since. We’ve had pizza feasts together, weekly Survivor viewings, dog and cat sit for each other. It has been such a joy spending this time in STL with them and fostering new adult friendships, something I’ve always felt to be pretty difficult. We just celebrated our Friendship Anniversary at Sado’s 2025 NYE Party.

Laura and Kelli had the sweetest apartments (which also happened to be less than 5 minutes away from ours) and when they shared with us that they would be moving into a new apartment together I asked them if we could make some time to take photos at their old apartments. It felt like a really perfect way to commemorate the time in their individual spaces before they moved their lives and animals together.

There is something so exciting and bittersweet about moving into a space with your partner. You give up a level of your independence and style and merge it with the person you love. It’s not bad, just bittersweet with a lot of joy and love to be gained. Laura had the most perfect light in her living room and Kelli had a big, beautiful backyard. So one afternoon I popped on over to their apartments with a couple of film cameras and we spent time together chatting about Kelli’s newfound love for having her toes painted red, playing with the animals and making a couple more memories in their old homes.

And a couple of photos I’ve collected over our year of friendship