Making New Friends

Katie is finally at an age where she can tell me who her friends are and actually gets excited about going to church to see them. One of her favorite friends lately, is little Lauren. Lauren is about a year older than Katie, but they both talk and learn at about the same level since Lauren was a preemie and Katie is not your average two year old. Katie thinks Lauren's baby sister, Avigayle, is some sort of fun doll. She's fascinated by her.

At the same time, although we've known Lauren's parents, Brandy and Jim, for a few years now, we are finally becoming better friends. Both of our families moved to Colorado and started attending the same church within a couple of months of each other. They home school, too. I like Brandy because she is direct and has a great big heart for kids. Her daughter, Lauren, is a miracle baby that wasn't expected to survive. They've gone through years of difficult medical issues and come out with a positive attitude through it all. Brandy even says she'd like to foster or adopt infants with extreme medical needs. I am amazed by her.

Her husband, Jim, is a jack of all trades and has stepped up repeatedly to help our family in the past few months. He's fixed our plumbing at the old house and here at the new house when our sprinkler system broke. When we asked if we could borrow his flat bed trailer to move a couch, he volunteered to help move it and then stayed at our house until 1 a.m. trying to find a way to get it into our basement. This was in spite of the fact that he had a huge order due the next day for his home business. I'm starting to think he ends almost every conversation with, "I could help you with that."

It's so good to have real friends here. We have many friends who have stepped up and helped out here and there over the past few years and some who have shown up for occasional events. But Brandy and Jim have been inviting us to join their family regularly for get togethers and have driven the half hour drive out to our house several times now. They are the kind of friends that you can call up and say, "Hey, I'm going somewhere fun in 30 minutes. Wanna come?" and they'll actually pack up their 5 kids and come. Now that I think about it... they're a lot like us.