The Rockes

Last weekend me (Amanda), Mac and Corrie received the best surprise gift: we got to go and visit our dear friends, the Rocke's, in North Carolina! We enjoyed so much laughter and made so many memories...it's hard to believe we fit all those great times into just a few days. I guarantee I will not be able to do justice to our visit with this post, but for the sake of anyone who has been waiting for months for a new post on the Rocke Blog, I will try and paint a small picture of our visit. :-)

When we first arrived on Friday afternoon, me and the kids were pretty hungry because we drove straight through lunch. I was treated to one of the Rocke house specialties: the Jelly Sandwich. I was warned that Jack had a knack for sneaking other people's sandwiches, but I wasn't expecting to see his cute little face sitting in my chair, eating my sandwich when I got up for a minute to get a drink!

Just look at that face. What could I do?
I gave him rest of my sandwich.

One thing that I especially loved was seeing all of our kids eating together at mealtimes. It was just so precious seeing them all sitting together around the table and eating much more peacefully than we expected. Kelly and I would just look at each other, thinking to ourselves, "is this really happening?" Before meals we would pray, and I will never forget Calvin and Corrie stretching out their little arms and leaning toward each other so they could hold hands while we prayed!

Please excuse how cheesy this sounds, but I just have to say it. Whenever I look at this picture or remember our times together last weekend, this scripture keeps coming to mind: "Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him." -Psalm 127:3. Thank you Dan and Kelly. It is really something special to enjoy the gift of our children together. 

I wish I could tell you more stories (like the one about Dan pushing the stroller in the mall!), but I only took one other picture. Not too exciting:

We noticed on Sunday night that Calvin's special helicopter drill had gone missing. We looked for it with genuine concern, but decided we would wait for it to "turn up" sometime, somewhere. It did turn up, in the back of the minivan when I unloaded all of our stuff after we got home. Mac found it and drilled me the face. Kelly said, "don't worry about mailing that back to us," but I think I will!

Before I end this post, I just have to include a link to the Rocke Blog from a couple of years ago (click on the word "link" in this sentence to direct you there).  Even then, you can see that a special friendship between our two families was growing. It is such a happy thing to see how it continues to blossom!