Our Journey East

Part I: Close Friends

Here we go! I do apologize for taking so long in talking about our trip. With our boys starting back to school last week and our girls starting up next Tuesday, it seems that I have less and less time for…well, for all the fun stuff.

(This is not to say that cleaning one’s classroom and making sure one’s teenagers are doing their homework isn’t vastly entertaining for me. Thank you, God! I can honestly say my life is neither dull nor lonely.)

Today, however, I shall pretend that it’s still summer.

I will eat a peach.

I will spend time in the sun.

I will smile and remember our vacation.

This is me and my friend, Barbara. Have you met Barbara? I have (obviously).

I am very blessed.

Barbara and I have been online friends for years. Years! We had never met before, however, because she’s in Ohio and I am not. It’s one of those stinky logistics things, you know? We live in a great big country and this is forever getting in the way of me & my friendships.

However—and this an awesome, AWESOME however—when we began planning our trip to Delaware, I knew that we’d be driving through Ohio.

“Can we stop for dinner at my friend Barbara’s?” My smile was beguiling, my tone filled with hope.

My husband said yes because he’s no dummy. I’d told him my friend was an amazing cook.

And really, how sweet was she to remember my son’s birthday? He shares his day with one of her sons, and Barbara was all too willing to let us eat cake.

This is Faith, Barbara’s sweet smiley daughter. I fell in love with her sunshiny ways…

…as did my girls, who rued the day that they left her.

(Do you blame them? The day that they left her was the same day they met her…three short hours later.)

(Sigh. In heaven we’ll have all the time we need.)

Thank you, Barbara, for starting out our vacation in the very best of ways! You are a wonderful hostess and–I can say this now–one of the very best of my IRL friends.

Of course, I knew you would be.