Friends and family...family and friends. Have you ever been so blessed that the boundary lines between the two become fuzzy? It is often said that God chooses your family, and you choose your friends (making it much easier to break ties with friends, while you are "stuck" with family :). However, our Crazy Crew has been blessed beyond measure to experience the best of both worlds! And that is what made our recent move so bittersweet (I say recent...when it has actually been a blazing fast 9 months!).
We are so very thankful to have opportunities to see family more often. For 8 years, we were 10-12 hours away from our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We loved seeing family, but dreaded the LOOONNNG drive home...and all the headaches that go along with young kids making multiple transitions to other people's homes while being completely out of routine for days on end...EXHAUSTING and stressful!!! The grandmas (my and Bobby's moms) usually made at least 2 visits a year to the DC area and stayed for a week at a time, and we made 2 visits home to KY each year and stayed for 1 to 2 weeks. These long visits made for amazing adventures and experiences between our kids and their grandmas, but we rarely got to spend quality time with extended family or Bobby's sister's family. While we no longer enjoy week-long stays with the grandmas (my mom is only 1 hour away, and Bobby's mom is only a 2 hour drive), we do get to see them more frequently, and they can come to special events on short notice. The added bonus has been the kids being able to have more gatherings in a few months with their cousins than they had enjoyed in their whole lives combined! Spring Break visits, birthday parties, sharing in cousins' special sports moments, more trips to Mammaw's farm and to Nanny's pool. I haven't done a great job of capturing many pictures, but you can get an idea of the joy on their faces :).
AND...then there are those people for whom the word "friend" just doesn't seem an adequate label. I like to refer to them as my "friend-family." You can't develop these types of relationships just anywhere. It takes time...a mutual dependency...and a few acts of God :). For us, it took living 10+ hours away from all family, having 4 babies in 5.5 years, and a husband who worked extremely long and stressful hours away from home. It took the blessing of God placing us in an area with countless other folks living out similar circumstances...landing us in a church full of military and other transient families who were all desperately seeking God's provision and surrogate families for their children. I'm not sure we would have ever developed these relationships without our children...you can't exactly "fake" complete independence when much of your sanity relies on the health and well-being of several little ones.
These amazing ladies pray for our family, they LOVE my children, they've brought meals when we had newborns and showered us with gifts with each child as if he/she were our first (even when I tried to convince them we didn't need it), they've cared for my kids on a moment's notice when there were emergencies, and they watched out for us and reminded me of our needs before I even realized them when my husband was overseas for 2 months and I was home with a 7 wk old, 1 yr old, 3 yr old, and 5 yr old. They and their children are the ones that my kids still miss and cry for.
Coming from a community of friends like that makes the transition somewhere else very difficult. Your kids are the "newbies," and folks don't readily accept their quirks (or mine :). It's easy to forget that those bonds developed over time...and with need. Many people have always lived close to family, so they've never considered living out a family-like relationship with friends. You can't meet someone and a week later have them feel like a part of your "friend-family"...and sometimes you don't want to let your guard down enough to allow them to be....that would make you feel like a traitor to those you've left behind.
We are so thankful to watch our children experience more time with their extended family, to not have to miss out on family celebrations, and especially to enjoy a slower, more simple pace of life with our own immediate family. God creates all kinds of seasons in our lives, and always with a lasting purpose. My prayer is that I will always be watchful for those around me who need a family-type-friend to lean on...that I will be able to pay forward all the blessings my Virginia friend-family provided us.
One scary part about leaving a "friend-family" is that you realize you may not see them very often...you "have" to travel home for Holidays when you live away from biological family, but lives are busy and race in different directions that often prevent visits with long-distance friends. Thank goodness for facebook, skype, email, free long-distance phone calls, etc. to help us keep in touch...but there's just nothing quite like a good ol' visit. So that's what the kids and I did earlier this summer...loaded up the van and drove 10 hours East back to Woodbridge to visit our friend-family. I wish I could have captured a video of the screams of pure joy when our kiddos reunited with their best buddies!!! We spent hours just hanging out, participated in our "old" church's VBS, and enjoyed feeling like we hadn't missed a beat in the months between our departure and return. My dearest friend, Christine & her husband, allowed our Crazy Crew to crash their home and disrupt their 3 kids' routines for 4 nights. I know these trips may not be frequent, so I cherished every moment, hug, and familiar smile. Watching my children's excitement made the solo drive over the mountains with 4 kids totally worth it :). Fortunately, my awesome friend, Mary, did use her new camera (since I never pulled mine out of the bag) to capture lots of great shots of the kiddos...I will treasure these always!!
We are so very thankful to have opportunities to see family more often. For 8 years, we were 10-12 hours away from our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We loved seeing family, but dreaded the LOOONNNG drive home...and all the headaches that go along with young kids making multiple transitions to other people's homes while being completely out of routine for days on end...EXHAUSTING and stressful!!! The grandmas (my and Bobby's moms) usually made at least 2 visits a year to the DC area and stayed for a week at a time, and we made 2 visits home to KY each year and stayed for 1 to 2 weeks. These long visits made for amazing adventures and experiences between our kids and their grandmas, but we rarely got to spend quality time with extended family or Bobby's sister's family. While we no longer enjoy week-long stays with the grandmas (my mom is only 1 hour away, and Bobby's mom is only a 2 hour drive), we do get to see them more frequently, and they can come to special events on short notice. The added bonus has been the kids being able to have more gatherings in a few months with their cousins than they had enjoyed in their whole lives combined! Spring Break visits, birthday parties, sharing in cousins' special sports moments, more trips to Mammaw's farm and to Nanny's pool. I haven't done a great job of capturing many pictures, but you can get an idea of the joy on their faces :).
 |
| I could do 20 blog posts on the fun our crew has on Mammaw & Pappaw Danny's farm! |
 |
| Mollie gets sweet kisses from cousin Izzy |
 |
| 7 cousins loaded onto the 4-wheeler at Uncle Richard's farm! |
 |
| Who says a dune buggy has to actually work to have fun...it's Izzy & Evie's jungle gym! |
AND...then there are those people for whom the word "friend" just doesn't seem an adequate label. I like to refer to them as my "friend-family." You can't develop these types of relationships just anywhere. It takes time...a mutual dependency...and a few acts of God :). For us, it took living 10+ hours away from all family, having 4 babies in 5.5 years, and a husband who worked extremely long and stressful hours away from home. It took the blessing of God placing us in an area with countless other folks living out similar circumstances...landing us in a church full of military and other transient families who were all desperately seeking God's provision and surrogate families for their children. I'm not sure we would have ever developed these relationships without our children...you can't exactly "fake" complete independence when much of your sanity relies on the health and well-being of several little ones.
These amazing ladies pray for our family, they LOVE my children, they've brought meals when we had newborns and showered us with gifts with each child as if he/she were our first (even when I tried to convince them we didn't need it), they've cared for my kids on a moment's notice when there were emergencies, and they watched out for us and reminded me of our needs before I even realized them when my husband was overseas for 2 months and I was home with a 7 wk old, 1 yr old, 3 yr old, and 5 yr old. They and their children are the ones that my kids still miss and cry for.
Coming from a community of friends like that makes the transition somewhere else very difficult. Your kids are the "newbies," and folks don't readily accept their quirks (or mine :). It's easy to forget that those bonds developed over time...and with need. Many people have always lived close to family, so they've never considered living out a family-like relationship with friends. You can't meet someone and a week later have them feel like a part of your "friend-family"...and sometimes you don't want to let your guard down enough to allow them to be....that would make you feel like a traitor to those you've left behind.
We are so thankful to watch our children experience more time with their extended family, to not have to miss out on family celebrations, and especially to enjoy a slower, more simple pace of life with our own immediate family. God creates all kinds of seasons in our lives, and always with a lasting purpose. My prayer is that I will always be watchful for those around me who need a family-type-friend to lean on...that I will be able to pay forward all the blessings my Virginia friend-family provided us.
One scary part about leaving a "friend-family" is that you realize you may not see them very often...you "have" to travel home for Holidays when you live away from biological family, but lives are busy and race in different directions that often prevent visits with long-distance friends. Thank goodness for facebook, skype, email, free long-distance phone calls, etc. to help us keep in touch...but there's just nothing quite like a good ol' visit. So that's what the kids and I did earlier this summer...loaded up the van and drove 10 hours East back to Woodbridge to visit our friend-family. I wish I could have captured a video of the screams of pure joy when our kiddos reunited with their best buddies!!! We spent hours just hanging out, participated in our "old" church's VBS, and enjoyed feeling like we hadn't missed a beat in the months between our departure and return. My dearest friend, Christine & her husband, allowed our Crazy Crew to crash their home and disrupt their 3 kids' routines for 4 nights. I know these trips may not be frequent, so I cherished every moment, hug, and familiar smile. Watching my children's excitement made the solo drive over the mountains with 4 kids totally worth it :). Fortunately, my awesome friend, Mary, did use her new camera (since I never pulled mine out of the bag) to capture lots of great shots of the kiddos...I will treasure these always!!
 |
| BFFs together again!!!! (Crazy Hat day at VBS) |
 |
| The 3 muskateers...or the love triangle...LOL! |
 |
| Yes...a few squabbles among the 1st borns...just shows true family-like love! :) |
 |
| Spidey buds! |
 |
| Ridiculous how much these 2 have grown in the last months! |
 |
| ALWAYS full of fun and giggles! |
 |
| SPLASH! |
 |
| The Anastacio, Miarer, and Wells crews the week before we moved to KY in Oct 2011 |
 |
| REUNITED in June 2012!!! |
