friends...

...come and go.

We miss you!  Jared's "buddy Tru" and his family moved this summer.  Carrie and Tyson have 4 boys and 1 girl (Taylee, the girl Owen's age, and the newborn boy Tripp weren't in the picture above.)  The boys had so much fun playing with this crew.  I guess it's a good thing they moved though... their boys had too much of an influence on our boys.  I remember one conversation Nathan and Jared had.  Jared said something like, "Tru knows everything." Nathan corrected him, saying Tru didn't know everything, but Trey does.   :)  Trey is the oldest boy, a couple years older than Nathan.  And the mischief they got into together... the time Jared and Tru found a steak knife in Tru's backyard and they were running around with it... and the time Jared got a bloody ear while rough housing on their trampoline... and the boys trying to ride tricycles down the slope in our backyard... and Trey getting cut while climbing over our barb wire fence to fetch a ball... and the boys rigging up a bucket swing in our tree and attempting to "pulley up" Taylee and Owen...  Nathan and Jared really looked up to these boys.  Yep, just too much influence, too much mischief, too much fun!  Good thing they moved.   ;)

Really though, I'm really grateful for this family - they have moved around A LOT (I think this was their 20th move in 11-12 years of marriage?).  I'm glad one stop was in our "port" because this family was just what I needed to help make a smooth transition from our move last year.  Carrie and I swapped baby-sitting quite a bit and we were also visiting teaching companions.  At times when Alex was out of town, Carrie watched the boys so I could go jogging or to the grocery store.  Their family was also a great example, particularly of service.  If there was a service opportunity, they were there. If someone needed a meal, they provided one.  There was one service project that our ward participated in that involved manual labor.  Carrie, about 8.75 months pregnant, was there with her kids (without her husband who was working that morning).  She would have had the best excuse not to be there, but not only was she there, but she never sat down all morning - we were there for about 3 hours.  Just amazing.

I think the one flaw with this family is that they only have one girl - only one chance of merging families... at least we have a few good men to choose from...  :)

It's good to have friends who just seem to understand you and put up with your flaws (I really am too busy to get to the phone most of the time....)  and friends who would drop everything if you ever needed anything (in fact, when Jared had to get stitches, I was chastised for NOT calling her to watch the other kids).  Thanks for your friendship!  We hope move #21 will be BACK to here...