it's time to talk about the barbies

i've procrastinated long enough. it's time to tell the barbie story. these were the original barbies:

i'm kind of in the center with the long-sleeved, white t-shirt. we eventually added more barbies to our group once we came back to the states, but these were the originals.

it all started on a missions trip to slovakia. we were running an english/sports camp for high school kids in the area and our dorm had two whole showers for 80+ girls. we also didn't have any hot water. having experienced similar living conditions on a trip to russia the year prior, i thought nothing of enduring a cold shower as long as the end result was that you were clean. i also didn't think twice about putting a little baby powder in my hair to soak up the oil if i didn't wash my hair every day. hey, blondes can do those sorts of tricks and get away with them. anyhow, coming down for breakfast one morning, M noticed that my hair looked pretty clean and teased me, asking if i was "missions barbie" or something. i let them all in on my hair secret, but the name stuck. i was missions barbie from there on out.

later that afternoon during craft time, M did something really embarrassing. i mean, so embarrassing that i won't risk telling her story on here unless she outs herself in the comments =) anyhow, after that little episode, we dubbed M as "cg barbie." i wish i could tell you what the cg stands for, because it is so funny. anyhow, she ended up with a more interesting name a few months later and it was "rv barbie." A was much taller and stronger than most of us, so we called her "xena barbie." K was teeny, tiny and she became "skipper."

it all sounds a little childish to be calling your friends barbie names, but we had all bonded during our trip and there seemed no better way to show it than to become the "barbies" and to later invite others to become barbies with us. here are some of the ways we bonded:

here, xena barbie and i are shaving our legs in the bathroom sink. we decided that it was better than shaving in the cold shower with goose bumps.


skipper barbie and i had just gone for a really long run through the city before this picture was taken. when we came back in to the cafe where everyone was hanging out, someone asked if we could help them out by washing dishes. we thought that they were just kidding around, so we agreed. we soon realized that they weren't kidding, and we just could not stop laughing at our situation. thus my red face...


and here are skipper, cg and xena barbies on an escalator back in the states. i think this was the time that we had just gone out for dinner at the cheesecake factory and then decided that we needed to go to lord & taylor to find and try on the most hideous evening gowns that we could possibly find. that was awesome. anyhow, here are the girls striking funny poses while i took the picture.


we also used to go running together quite a bit. i only wish someone had recorded us during those runs... we would make up the most insane songs to sing and keep ourselves going. now, the barbies live all over the world. we still share the barbie-bond, though, and if we ever run across each other it is like no time has passed at all. anyone else have any barbie friends or stories?