Friends

It has become very clear to me how lucky we are to have such wonderful friends. Because of our travels and opportunities to live in many different places those friends are not only awesome, but varied, both in culture and inevitably--location. I like to think about my friends relative to where they are living. For example, my friend who lives in California; I always imagine her playing outside with her kids eating citrus fruit. This is obviously not what she does all the time but for some reason it's the image I have stuck in my brain. My friend in Germany is forever sunbathing at the Lake we sun bathed at together during my visit many years ago...and another friend in Utah, will always be riding her horses down the canal we transversed together on horseback so many times when we were younger. I can't explain why I do this, but I have created so many images of my friends in their relative locations that I just assume they are doing the same with me.

Do you do this too?

Maybe you imagine me tackling children along the ocean shore.
Maybe I'm in my little art studio, painting my latest landscape.
Perhaps, you envision me sightseeing a new area.
Maybe this is just what I hope you are envisioning:)
Whatever the image may be I am guessing there is some actual truth in it. I do actually do all three of those things I listed, though maybe not as often as I wish I was doing them:)

But I digress, what I was really meaning to write about was good friends and what a blessing it is to have them in abundance!

We've recently had some visitors that go way back on the friend register. We were so happy to have the Merrill's visit. 7 years and 7 kids later and it didn't feel like that much had changed...except everything. Everything but us really. Isn't that always how it feels?
We did our best to show them our favorite sights and cook them some yummy food. We hope they enjoyed their visit as much as we enjoyed it. I was too busy playing to take very many pictures. These will have to suffice...





This girl cracks me up. This is her 'cheese' face--adorable.

Strike a pose!--








There is always time for good friends. Next time we'll visit you in your new home. We can't wait.