Besides my love of hockey, we traveled a few weekends ago to the Raleigh area for a completely different reason. Last summer, Ski and our older Ski-bums went to a youth retreat in Virginia. The kids had a blast and two of them ended up making new friends. One evening, Nate introduced himself to a young man who was playing pool. Both he and Ski met the boy and his father. After returning home, the boys began e-mailing each other. Frequently, their boy would invite us up to their church. One night Ski got the bright idea of seeing a hockey game and visiting them as well. So, we had Nate e-mail and ask if he was serious and if the invitation included all 8 of us. We were fairly sure that they were not serious. Well, it turned out after a few e-mails back and forth with son, mom, and dad e-mailing Ski and Nate, that they were serious and that ALL of us were invited. So, we figured out some days and they were very open.
After the hockey game ended, we made our way to the K. house. It was a bit of a drive and we found ourselves kind of lost. We had to call them, but they got us to the road that we had been unable to find. We found ourselves driving up a driveway in the middle of the woods. They all came out to meet us and the mom rattled off all of our names which is not an easy feat for someone who had never met us. LOL Their home was absolutely beautiful. I was immediately drawn to all of the books. The kids were fascinated by the circular stairway -- until they found the elevator. After they told us not to take it to the third floor, I was deathly afraid that the younger kids would push the wrong button. The boys spent lots of time downstairs which I heard was cool, but I never made it down there. They had a HUGE fireplace which did an amazing job keeping the house warm.
I must say, more amazing than their home and the location of their home was the family themselves. They were so welcoming and kind and just so friendly. Over the next two days, we talked and talked and piece by piece we learned about each others' lives. Unfortunately, we are night owls and they are not early birds either. So, on Fri. and Sat. we stayed up til about 2am just talking. The younger kids stayed up waaaaay too late and the boys....well, I'll just say that on Fri night, they were up later than us. It is really an amazing feat that none of us fell asleep in church on Sunday morning.
On Sat, they took us to a park where we all hiked. The scenery was just beautiful. There must have been five hawks flying around and I love to watch birds of prey. It was nice and flat so I didn't have any trouble. I certainly didn't need an ATV to get home. When we got home, we made dinner. We had turkey and okra and tomatoes and ratatouille and tons more food. The girls, Mrs. K, and I all worked on dinner. Curly chopped all the veggies for the ratatouille. Mrs. K. made a really interesting gravy. It was a Southern style white gravy and it was REALLY good. I wasn't paying attention, but Ski FILLED his plate with the gravy until one of the girls exclaimed, "Dad!!!! That's GRAVY -- not potatoes." Ski and I loved the okra and tomatoes. I got to be embarrassed by my dear Lydia. She always tells it like it is and when the raw veggie platter came to her, she exclaimed quite loudly, "I hate raw broccoli." I am not sure WHY she said this since later in the evening, she ate a good bit of it. Our host got to hear some of her Lydia-isms as well. She has a very dry sense of humor and says very funny things, but they just don't come across the same told second hand.
Lydia and Isaac had a blast playing with their little girl. She is all into playing mommy and Lydia was thrilled to have a playmate because that doesn't happen often. Their daughter was born in China and she is as cute as a button. She really likes to dance and she was really rocking out to the music in our car. Oh, and she also loves to eat -- especially pizza from what I am told. She obviously loves her brothers very much and who could blame them. Their boys are just really neat, considerate, young men. They are so funny and interesting.
After dinner, they were going to take us to see some cows that look like these:
But, the place was closed. Apparently, they are never closed. But we still had fun with all 13 of us visiting Harris Teeter together. Someone actually laughed to see us all together. We came home and had chocolate cake and stayed up late again.Amazingly, we were able to get up and to church on time. We saw three people from our church and a couple that moved from our town years ago just happened to sit in front of us. After church, we went for pizza. It was some AWESOME pizza. When we finally left thier home, it was late in the afternoon and I am sure that they were exhausted. Ski was tired himself, so I drove a bit so he could rest. We got home pretty late and we were soooooo tired. But we had the BEST time at their house. I even thanked Nate for introducing himself to them.
BTW, here is a pic of Nate and his friends.
Nate, of course, is on the left with T (c) and L(r) waiting for pizza....Don't they look like they are starving?!?!?!?!
Unfortunately, while we brought our camera, we just didn't take any pics at all. Shucks.....I guess we'll have to go back and take some pics. So, if any of you K's read this, thanks for the awesome time!!!!
**Ski said: I totally concur with my sweet B about our weekend. What an awesome God we have that He would bring us into fellowship with His awesome people. While this trip was supposed to be a little R&R for me, I DID manage to fire off a few pics of the kids after a hike and the K boys with N (and the sun in their eyes) before our Sunday afternoon trip home. Mr. K, I will be praying that your job becomes "unfrozen" and/or the Lord provides some other path. Thank you for you
r gracious and adventurous wife and family. They are an evidence of your God-focused leadership and are a HUGE blessing to us.Your house is indeed amazing and God's grace shown to us through your hearts of hospitality was even more amazing. Philippians 1: 3-6**
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