Living two minutes away from my cousin and being only six months apart I grew up with a best friend who no matter what (whether we liked it or not) was always there. We went to dance class together every day and we were always partners because we were exactly the same height. We got American Girl Dolls one year for Christmas and both wanted one of the dolls that looked like us, much to our despair we ended up with the exact same doll. Not only did we have the same doll, we both decided to name the dolls after our own middle names. Our moms would dress us in matching outfits and would trade who would pick us up after dance class so we were always together. Consequently, for years people thought we were actually twin sisters.

One of my favorite memories is going on vacation and staying in the presidential pent house suit with our whole family. We would act super mature and pretend we were famous twins like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. After the people would get off, and the doors would close, we would giggle hysterically.

Another great memory was when we were going to different elementary schools, but figured out that we had the same bus driver and rode the same bus just at different times. We would write notes to each other and give them to the bus driver and she would pass them back and forth between us. It didn't matter that we saw each other everyday at dance, I was never more excited then the days I would see a paper in the front window of the bus with my name on it.

Things were not always great between us. We had our days where we fought because I wanted the blue dress or she didn’t want to be “Mom” again when we played house. We would fight and argue over the stupidest things just like sisters.

In the end if I ever heard anyone talk bad about her, I would always though the first punch. As much as she would drive me crazy I love my cousin with all my heart and would never trade her for anything in the world.