Thanksgiving journey day 7

I have mentioned God and family now it is time for me to go into how thankful I am for Ernie's and my friends. I am thinking that I will separate them somewhat and spread this out over a few posts. It is funny because when we moved here about 8 years ago we came to town and knew only each other (now I have to spread them out so my post isn't a novella). Of course we made friends at work and me at work and school, but the dearest friends weren't a product of secular affiliations.


I met my first best friend here completely by the will of God. I was at work; we had been in town for about a month or so and still hadn't found a home church. I was waiting tables at the cafe when I saw a familiar face. It was my church camp counselor from the 4th grade. Whoa and he hadn't changed in 20 years. I talked to him and found out that he was preaching at the church just down the road from the cafe. We started attending there and later his oldest daughter, her husband and baby moved to town and started coming to church too. We hit it off pretty quickly, but it was when we got pregnant together (me with my first and her with her second) that we really bonded. We became the two pregnant Kriste[a]n's at CCC. It was a little confusing to people especially the elderly. They would ask, “which Kriste[a]n” and would receive, "oh the pregnant one" as a response. (There is a sweet old man who decided to change my name--not on purpose. He still doesn't know my real name, to Heather-- we are at an entirely different church now and he is there too and he still calls me Heather and I love it! It is like my own special name for him to call me!) Anyway back to Kristen... She and I would have play dates-- ya know the kind where our babies sit and coo at the ceiling as we sit and chit chat! These are the formative years for them, they need to learn early how to socialize! :) To make a long story short she moved away almost 2 years ago now and so I haven't seen her in a long time, but we talk all the time still.
We were both led to find another church. Kristen had moved about an hour away so she had left shortly before we did. Now we still hung out together swapping which direction we went for the play date each time. We would often meet in the middle and take the girls to a play land or park or open gym at the gymnastics studio... we had a good time and the girls loved each other. We both found new churches and that leads me into my next post (and I will show you how I can look back and see God’s providence in my friend finding)…until tomorrow…I love you Kristen and miss you dearly.



I uploaded some photos of one of our play dates. This was before The Turkey came along-- for some reason I don't have any shots of them all together with The Turkey.

in order: the Hippie, the Genius, and Ollie