Friends!

I love those friends who are literally like a breath of fresh air.  Luke and Kathryn are like that to us!  We have known Luke and Kathryn for more than 5 years now and I have loved every minute of it.  When we met these sweet friends Nathan immediately recognized God's hand on Luke's life and desired to help him in the ministry God was calling him to.  Little did we know that less than a year later we would move to Martin's Mill as pastor.  As soon as we arrived Nathan saw the great need for a youth minister...the church is literally in backyard of the high school!  God led Nathan to call on Luke and thus a beautiful partnership begun!
We spent tons of time together...including the time that Nathan used the wrong kind of paint on our parsonage walls and Luke and Kathryn came over to help us peel the walls piece by piece by piece!:)  They stayed at our house most Saturday nights and we would stay up talking and laughing late into the night.  Nathan and I had the great honor of standing in their wedding and we were also blessed to be able to visit when their sweet little Madelyn Kate was born.  It has been a blessing to watch God use them!
A lot has changed since our good 'ole Martin's Mill days...they have a baby now and live in Tyler...we have 2 more babies and now we live in Malakoff!
But, like they say...absence does make the heart grow fonder!  Luke, Kathryn, and sweet Maddie came over for dinner the other night and it was so much like old times (plus 3 kiddos =).  We enjoyed some great fish that Nathan fried and then an ever better dessert that Nathan made up!`

Kolson and Maddie are only 4 months apart so they seem to really enjoy watching each other.  Although Kolson really loved her bow so we had to take it off so he would quit pulling it over her eyes!

And there is just nothing like a naked baby or two!:)

We are so thankful to have such great friends...the kind that will drive an hour to eat dinner with you, or the kind that you feel like you don't have to clean like a mad woman before they come over.  But more than that Luke and Kathryn are the kind of friends we can call when we are hurting or when we need someone to really pray for us! 

I hope you are all blessed with great friends!