An Ode to Kim...

Over the last few months I have had one of life's greatest pleasures, that of developing a new friendship. I love those first few weeks with a new friend where you get to tell them your stories that everyone else has already heard, and you get to relive them all over again. I love learning their stories and getting to know them at a deeper level with each one. If you know me, you know that I am a tried and true introvert and making friends does not come easily to me. I have to force myself to talk to new people or to be outgoing. It usually takes me a while to get to know someone well and to trust them enough that I can completely be myself around them.

This was in no way the case with Kim! With every story we swapped and every personality trait we revealed, we swore we were seperated from birth. I have never met anyone I have so much in common with. After a few times it kind of started to freak us out a little how many things were similiar! She actually even has a boy (actually 2) and a girl that can play with my kids- most my friends seem to have 1 or the other. Even though she doesn't have kids the twins age she completely welcomes them into her home. She amazingly didn't kick us out when Wesley broke Joseph's baby ornament on their tree- yikes! She even offered to get them their own bucket of toys for when they are her house! When we showed up for our first homeschooling activity with the big kids she had even planned themed activities for the twins- talk about the way to my heart!

Homeschooling can be an incredibly lonely experience, and it has been so nice to have a buddy to do projects with. Boy, when we are team teaching we can bring it if I do say so myself! We have done Thanksgiving reader's theater complete with homemade outfits, a Christmas lapbook, electricity experiments, fraction fun, a planning weekend, an Olympics unit, poetry writing, art projects and lots of cool math activities. In one month we are headed to Ohio for 3 nights and 4 days of a homeschooling conference (i.e. girl time!).

My favorite saying she has is "we're looking for friends to do life with." Which translates to not caring if each other's house is dirty, praying faithfully for one another, chatting daily on the phone, folding each others laundry, cleaning out closets together, cooking a month's worth of meals to freeze for both our families (my personal favorite), family game night (my other favorite because Ben's as competitive as me), and right now both having strep throat (my least favorite).

Apparently even God knows how close we are as He revealed something for her to tell me that I really needed to hear. Over the next few months I am excited to cover her in prayer as she heads on a mission trip to Ethiopia. She has taught me so much about hospitality, covering your children with scripture and prayer. So I thank God for her and her family.

She keeps complaining because despite the fact that we are almost daily together I haven't mentioned her on my blog yet. What she doesn't understand is that is mostly her fault. When you have such a good friend I can call her and tell her all the cute or funny things the kids did instead of blogging about them!

So, here sweet friend is an entire blog entry dedicated to you!

Does this make up for the fact that I gave you strep throat??????????????