Our Desert Homestead

old and new friends

Tonight we went to dinner at some new friends house.  They are older than us and have been visiting our church for awhile.  They are wanting to get involved and thought it would be good to have us over for dinner.  You know when you go somewhere new and you hope all you have taught your kids will come out of them?  Well - my ds10 and my dd8 were fine.  I had to nudge the 8 yo's elbow off the table as she leaned over her yummy dinner.  Then there is my wonderful 3 1/2 year old daughter.  She was carrying around this beautiful glass candy dish and then was stacking and clanging the coasters together.  Then she picked the silk flowers off the arrangement.  She dumped the entire box of game pieces (marbles, chess pieces and more).  She kept opening th fridge and demanding to have milk.  After she ate her apple cake, we had to find the broom and dustpan.  And the whole while our hosts were very gracious.  As we left to go home, she ran over and hugged the lady and then hugged the man and said bye.  I guess she didn't actually break anything so that was good.

Old friends:  Hang on for this long story but quite amazing.

When I was about 8 my dad read a letter to the editor in our local paper.  It was written by a mom on the other side of the state and it was regarding the problems she was having with public schools.  This was in about 1975.  My dad wrote that family to say he agreed and we began to correspond and my sister and I became penpals with their 2 girls.  So, as we grew up and into college even, we kept in touch and would visit each other when we were nearby.  When we would have these occasional visits - we always found things we had in common, like the same set of dishes, matching bed room sets etc...

Then, when I met my husband in South Carolina, we find out that my husband grew up in the same exact little town in Massachusetts as my penpals mom.  In fact, my mil and my pen pals mom went to high school together.  And we found this out while this family and our family were living in Washington state.  So, thru all that, we have remained friends for over 30 years and today she came to visit us.

My old penpal lives in upstate New York and I live in Eastern Washington state.  I live about 1 hour from her parents so she and her mom came to my house and mymom came over too and we had a great time remembering how God has led us and directed our lives over these many years.

That is so cool!

08:19 AM, Saturday, September 23, 2006 .. Posted by Pattisea

If it were in a movie, people would complain it's not realistic, but real life is full of interesting little coincidences and miracles, isn't it?

Patti