Friends Are Like Gold

We are so grateful for the many wonderful friends that the Lord has brought into our lives.  Whether near or far, we always love getting together with others.

 

A few weeks ago our friends Ryan and Katy were in town from California.  Ryan and Andy have been friends since middle school and he was the Best Man in our wedding. 

 

Katy and Ryan are so fun and we love every minute that we get to spend with them!  We would love for them to move back to Tallahassee one day, but they own an improv comedy school for kids and it's been going great, so I don't see Tallahassee being their home anytime soon, but you never know.  :)  I know I could round up some homeschoolers to take their classes if they ever decide to move their school here.  :)

 

Anytime they are in town, Ryan's parents host a get together and we all head over there, let the kids run around and have fun while we all catch up.

 

 

 Ryan's dad loves restoring old cars and so there is usually some sort of ride around his parent's property involved in our visit.  The kids love it!

 

 

Last month the kids and I tagged along on a work trip with Andy to St. Pete.  I was excited because I knew that we would get a change to hang out with some of our closest friends.  Chris and Andy were college roommates and as soon as I met his wife Sydney, we instantly connected.  Now, years later, as homeschool moms with 4 kids each, we have even more in common.  She is definitely a "kindred" spirit.

 

 

Three of our kids are almost exactly the same age, which made it so much fun for them to play together.  The boys are the ones that are the same age.  They also have an older daughter and we have Ellis to bring up the rear, but they all ended up playing together at some point. :)

 

Here's Jack and Davis



Knox and Noah

 



 

Drew and Luke

 

 

The kids enjoyed looking off the dock, fishing, swimming, playing games, playing legos, and just being together.

 

 

This week a few of our friends met us out in our new neighborhood so that we could play and they could get an opportunity to see the progress on our house.

 

We met for a picnic and to play and then we headed over to our lot to see the excitement of our blocks framing out the outline of our house.  It was HOT!!!  But, it was still fun and I got excited thinking of how neat it will be to host our friends out there in the future.

 

I don't know if you can see it in the picture below, but I thought it was so funny how Ellis was pursing her lips. :)

 

Several months ago a few couple friends and Andy and I decided that a date night together sounded like lots of fun.  Since one of the couples are the parents of our regular baby-sitter and the other couple has girls who always help with our kids when we get together, we figured that we could let the kids have fun hanging out at our house and we adults could go out to dinner.

 

It has worked out wonderfully.  The kids have a blast together and so do we!  So last night, after our group date, we came home and the kids stopped us at the door and told us to hold on so that they could get ready?  Apparently they worked really hard on their human pyramid and wanted to show it off.

 

I for one was very impressed!

*Davis and Ellis were not in the pyramid because they were sound asleep. :)

 



Sometimes they make crafts, play outside, play Wii, play board games, but the girls also love to do photo shoots.  Our baby-sitter is the daughter of my baby photographer. :) Here are some of the photos from yesterday's session.  I definitely see photography is her future.  :)

 

 

We love our friends so much and I pray that our kids will continue to grow in these friendships, and that God will continue to bring other friends into their lives.

 

This reminds me of a song I would sing as a child.

 

Make new friends,

but keep the old,

one is silver,

and the other's gold.

 

May that be true in their lives as well as my own. 

 

And most of all I pray that these kiddos would grow up the best of friends.  :)