Faux Families

     I have a friend I met in high school, K, when I started hanging out with her sister, P.  I borrowed a brother M for my Senior Prom, and even lent a nephew J to a little sister C for another formal.  (They had 9 kids in their family)  I was maid of honor at her sisters P wedding, and we spent a lot of time planning showers, doing wedding dress fittings, etc.  It turned out we hung out at a lot of the same places in 'the city', and wound up being close friends.  That was (ahem) a few years back.  OK, more like 30 years ago.  We've been each others support for funerals, and weddings, financial crisis and mall shopping trips.  We travel well together, and treat each others nieces and nephews like they were our own.  Our families always include each other in celebrations, and the name 'friend' doesn't seem to quite describe the depths of connection.
     I love my 'original' family, and all it's extensions, in-laws, nieces, nephews and their spouses, and like the boyfriends/girlfriends/roommates of the twentysomethings that are always around.  We generally get along, no drama, no grudges and non-talkers, etc that you hear about in some families.  I like spending time with them, and truely miss them when they're away.  Family, the word, does (at least for me) describe the affection, connection, committment and deep feelings associated with them.  I just wish there was a better word than Friend for the others.  I have people I barely know on Facebook ask to be my friend.  I'm glad to share a moment with them, but it diminishes the word when I have to use it to describe the people I consider my 'almost family'.  People I would have picked to have blood ties with if I could add that.  (Well, blood ties is a bad example, because the folks adopted into our family are as much family as those born into it). 
     I have decided that Faux Family will work for me.  It's not my original family, but the one I have developed and nutured for almost as long.  Friend doesn't cut it, and , although Faux is usually not a good thing, in this instance it is!  Do you have a connection like this, and what words do you use?