Friends and Family

The past few days have been visiting days. It kind of goes in waves. We will have times where we are just rolling along with our regular schedule and then all within a few days, we have visits with friends and family that we haven't seen for a while. This past Friday, the boys and I packed up and headed west...two whole hours west! We drove to New Enterprise, PA, near Woodbury, PA where we used to live. We went to see our friend Sara in the musical "Cinderella" that her high school was performing. Sara was the Queen. She did wonderfully. She impressed me with how dramatic she was and with how comfortable she seemed to be on stage.

We stayed with our friends Joyce, Larry and "Big John". Their family were our boys' regular babysitters when we lived in Woodbury. They were actually more like surrogate aunt, uncle and grandparents. Helen was "Big John's" wife. She passed away the very same week that we moved away from Woodbury, to Mechanicsburg. And "Big John" was not "Big John" until little John came around. As a matter of fact, "Big John" is not really all that tall. But he has always been "Big John" to our boys.

This family really is precious to us. This past weekend, we were their first EVER overnight guests. Pretty cool. The day following the musical, Sara and her family came over for breakfast. It was fun to spend time with old friends. Ethan was John's first best friend. Those boys used to sit and gab nonstop with each other...more of what you would expect from little girls, or maybe adolescent girls. It is great to see them pick up right where they left off last time.

For some reason, going back and visiting people I haven't seen for a while takes me out of my comfort zone. This is especially true when going back to Woodbury. When we lived there, the population was 239. With Dave being a pastor at a church there, we got to know so many people. It was amazing the amount of people in that high school auditorium that I knew. I have always been uncomfortable with things like that and I don't really know why. Maybe because of the unexpected, things I cannot anticipate. Or maybe it is because I don't know how to answer questions like, "How are you?" "How have you been?" "What have you been up to?" I'm not so good at small talk and not very good about summarizing in 5 minutes what life has been like the past 5 years. Having the boys makes me do things that I wouldn't normally do. I will leave my comfort zone because I think that it is something that will be good for them. In the process, it challenges me and stretches me as well.

Well, we got on our way early because Gram and Pop-pop were coming to visit on Saturday. So when we got home, they were here already with Dave. It was great to spend the afternoon with them. They live in DE and will drive 4 hours to spend an afternoon with us and then turn around and drive 4 hours back. When the boys were younger (and she would probably still do it now if we asked), Peggy would drive 4 hours just to babysit them when we had something major going on.

Then on Monday, one of my college roommates came for a visit. She lives in Hershey and it is always wonderful to spend time with her. This time, baby Abigail didn't get to come. She is so precious.

So, all in all, it was a weekend of spending time with special people that we are blessed to have in our lives.