After thinking that we were on our way to Seattle, it was funny to discover that we were actually on a plane headed to Portland, Oregon, and then we stayed just outside of Vancouver, Washington.  A few weeks ago, Matthew schemed a delightful idea for the two of us to go away for a long weekend to visit dear friends of ours who are missionaries in Indonesia, back in the States for a couple months to renew their visas.  Then, it turned out that our other dear friends who live in Ohio, were able to join us!  We met up half-way in the Denver airport and flew the rest of the way together.

Since arriving, we were stuffed to the gills with delicious food, laughed our guts out, filled them up again with good food, saw beautiful sights, and enjoyed the delightfulness of friendship.  I brought a file of old letters my friend wrote me between the ages of 12 and 18, and the tears rolled down our cheeks as we laughed at our silliness and immaturity.

Us girls went out for coffee the first day here and enjoyed the cozy fireplace and conversation.

The men went hiking to a waterfall on Sunday afternoon.

While they were there they got hit by a big hailstorm.  We all laughed that they were able to have a real adventure, instead of a virtual one.  A few times all three men were sitting on the couch with laptop, ipad, and itouch, having a virtual adventure of chess, hunting, or the like.  We were happy they were able to experience a real-life, manly, flesh and blood adventure, complete with coming home soaked and exhilarated. 

Sunday, Katelyn threw up all day.  We went through towels and clorox wipes galore.  Before the sun went down, we wanted to go outside to take a picture of just us adults.  It had been raining a bit earlier on, so the deck was a bit slick.  As we walked out, Ruthie slipped on the bottom step and rolled her ankle.  So, we all joined her on the ground for our picture before she limped back inside to ice and elevate her ankle.

With those two adventures come and gone, we adults headed out for a birthday celebration dinner for Ruthie at a microbrewery in Portland.  It was so much fun!

The part that amazes me the most of these friends is how strong our bond is.  We all see eachother every one or two years.  This visit makes it twice now that our husbands have met and they connect and get along so well.  We live thousands of miles apart.  The three of us girls lived together in Africa for a time-span of about  9 months.  We have files of letters that prove how much our friendship meant to us throughout the years.  We watched eachother fall in love with our husbands.  We all approve of eachother’s choice of mate.  We get along as if we see eachother all the time!  We all love good food.  God is the center of our friendship and the reason we are able to be as close as we are, even though physically and in every other way our friendship really should have dissolved years ago.  Thank you, Father!

We missed our kids a lot while we were gone.  It was also very refreshing to have time away to reconnect, focus on eachother, and talk about things that we never have time to talk about!  We loved hanging out with these little kiddos, though!  Katelyn, Jordan, and baby Haddie!