Sailing in Santa Barbara on our friends’ boat.

We’re having house guests for the weekend. I’ve been running around, cleaning, planning menus and buying food. Our good friends from Santa Barbara that we met as newlyweds are driving out to see us in Arizona.

Our husbands met each other during training in Princeton at the beginning of their careers with Merrill Lynch. They hit it off and since we all lived in California, they invited us to their apartment in Santa Barbara. We made the four-hour trek from Palm Springs one weekend.

I’ll never forget pulling up to the curb at the place of people I’d never met and my husband’s friend said “Right mates, let go!” (He’s from Australia.) We jumped in his car and headed to the marina where his wife was waiting for us on their boat.

Soon, I learned how to skirt the jib and follow other commands. We were in the midst of a race with the Santa Barbara Yacht Club. They asked if I needed a jumper which I had no idea meant a sweater. Other Aussie phrases I learned that weekend were “G’day mate” and “for sh*ts and giggles.”

That was the beginning of a friendship I treasure. I overheard the friend tell my husband, “The wives are getting along. It doesn’t always work out that way.”

We don’t have anything nearly as exciting planned for their visit as being in a yacht race. But we’ll enjoy each other’s company, hike some trails and check out the water level at our nearby lake.

What are your favorite things to do with friends?

How did you meet your best friends?

Do you have couple friends that both you and your spouse enjoy?

You can barely see my friend’s head over her husband’s back on one of our sailing trips.