A Friendly Weekend

It is official. I am now a resident of the country we live in. We packed up our car, drove to the Big Capital City and stayed with some dear friends overnight in order that we would make my very "prompt" appointment with Immigration the following morning.

Derrik and Julie. The couple that we stayed with are very good friends of ours and here is our story: Once upon the time when Julie and I wore pigtails and hopped down the almond tree path to school, we met in first grade. Probably before that, really, but we shared first grade together. She was one of my favorite friends because she was always so kind and sweet. My favor of her had nothing to do with the fact that she and her sisters had a huge, real, life size doll house behind their home filled with dolls and toys as far as my little eyes could see, or that they had an electric toy car, the first one I had ever seen (Julie would let me drive it too, that's the kind of awesome friend she was). That had nothing to do with my favor. Nope, nope. We were tight. We were friends. And we were gonna be friends forever.

Except then we had to move away. Far, far away. To a different continent even. Not that it mattered much that I was the one moving away, because Julie and her family moved away also, and we were separated even further than before. Our lives were over, it seemed. But on that glorious day when Julie's mom sent my Momma a letter, my mom announced that there was something in the envelope for me, too. It was a picture! Drawn by the cute hand of none other than Julie. I raced to get my drawing gear and carefully drew my own picture, folded it "neatly" and then probably badgered my mom for several days to write her friend back (which she was obviously going to do anyway) so that I could send my picture to my long lost friend. And that was all it took. From then on we became the best of pen pals you ever saw. Sometimes we even wrote two letters a week. We wrote to each other through the trials of caring for our first pets, we wrote each other our first cursive letters (boy those are hard to read!), we wrote about our countries, our hobbies, we sent each other stickers, photographs, secrets, she wrote her heart out about her mother's cancer, I shared about the loss of my rabbit (does not compare at all). We bragged about our growing skills, our grades, our grand accomplishments. We shared our beliefs and thoughts about our faith in God. And then we grew up. After about age sixteen, the amount of letters dwindled and eventually just disappeared. I don't know if either of us really know why, but the letters just stopped. I could suggest a thousand different reasons why it happened, but the truth is I simply don't know. Maybe we were just too old. Maybe there was so much going on in our lives (school, boys, clothes, music, outings...) that it seemed like a letter wouldn't do much justice to describing ourselves anymore. Maybe we had different close friends....So many maybes. It doesn't really matter. After ten faithful years of writing, the letters ceased to be written and we moved on with our lives.

When I was on my way to college, my mom handed me a sticky note with an address she had gotten from Julie's Mom of where Julie was going to college...something about she was studying nursing. I got excited at the prospect of getting in touch with her, but in the process of moving and discovering the wonders of collegiate life the sticky note stuck itself to something that walked off and was nowhere to be found. I did not forget though. I looked her up. For about four years I name searched her on google, myspace, facebook, and hifive. I looked up her sisters, her parents, anyone I thought might have contact with her and every time came up with nothing. Then, at the end of 2008 I got an e-mail. From Julie! She had heard from her her sister that I was a friend of a mutual friend on facebook and that she should join and look me up. At first I had no idea who the girl on facebook was that had added me. Her name was not familiar and her profile picture was too obscure to make out. In her e-mail she signed with her middle name and I realized she had married and changed her last name and the sun shone through the clouds and I shouted with joy because we had finally found each other. And the most bizarre part of all? We are living in the SAME country. One that neither one of us had ever lived in before. She lives in the capital and I live on the southern coast, but visits are possible and we enjoy them every time. We both confessed that we kept each others' letters and that one of our favorite and fondest memories of our childhood was our unwavering correspondence. Thanks Julie, for those ten awesome years and for always hosting us so kindly when we come for a visit.




Now. The other part of our weekend is that we have some other great friends that live near the Big Capital City who have two little boys, one whom is slightly older than Luka, who we met for lunch at McJunk McDonalds after my Immigration appointment. Being that we do not have any fast food joints where we live, Luka had his first play pen/happy meal experience, and as most kids do, he loved it. His favorite part was the ketchup cup. He drank it down, and then sucked as much of the sauce as he could off of the cup. If we would have let him, he would have eaten the cup as well. It was so much fun to watch our boys run around together and to catch up on life happenings. Thank you Redcay family for the fun and for Luka's happy meal!

p.s. Julie's husband Derrik and Jason have hit it off nicely, which adds to our delight, and Julie's baby girl Emma and Luka seem tolerant of each other which adds even more to our fun. = ]

The buddies, Luka and Tito

Two thumbs up on the ketchup!

Ah yes. Success.