Well, again I have let months pass with no update. I have good intentions to update. I knew I would blog about Christmas, about our trip to Silver Dollar City, about Spring Break at Nanny's (to include the flood!), and about all of Rebekah's milestones, but all of that seems so long ago!
So, I will blog about our visit from the Robinette's last week. Do you have a friend that you just know God personally delivered? That's how I feel about the Robinettes. Let me tell you the story. Well, wouldn't you know two minutes into typing up this post, Rebekah is awake!! I suppose I will save for now and hope to finish this tonight when I put Rebekah to bed.
Maybe I can get the story in before I hear her again. That is life ~ getting things done between Rebekah's nap and bedtime. Back to the Robinettes! When we left Plattsburg, NY we moved to Cabot, AR. While stationed there at Little Rock AFB, we attended The Bible Church of Cabot. We loved that church and fellowshipped with some terrific families. One family was Mike and Norene Bennett.
Fast forward three years ~ we get orders to RAF Lakenheath, UK. We move to England and found a house to rent in Swaffham which was about 40 minutes north of the base. We lived there for a year before we finally got into base housing. The base housing was about 30 minutes south of RAF Lakenheath in Ely, Cambridgeshire. A few weeks after moving in to base housing (it was actually a newly built subdivision of contracted out housing) a neighbor invited me to her DK book party. It was nice to meet other ladies who lived in this housing area. One particular red haired lady was introduced to me and it went like this: "Michele, this is Melissa." I'm sure I said something like, "It's nice to meet you" and she looks very inquisitively at me and said, "What is your last name?". I replied, "Hauch." She then smiled and had this look on her face, like, I finally found you!! And she said, "Do you know Mike and Norene Bennett?" To which I, still a bit confused, I'm sure, said, "Yes." This lady was making me a little nervous with her enthusiasm. Then she proclaimed, "That is my dad and step-mother!"
Here we are in another country and I meet this sweet, yet wacky! girl who is telling me that I knew her parents from our previous church. It was a pretty wild introduction!
The rest of the background is that Norene had told Michele when they got orders to England (they arrived a couple of months after we did) that she knew of a family from her church that had just gone to England. She told her that our kids were about the same age and that she thought we would be good friends. She told Michele our names and so for the next year in England, every Melissa she would meet, she would ask her what her last name was. A year later we finally meet at the DK book party. Michele lived about 2 blocks down one way and I lived 1 block the other. So, we finally met and live just 3 blocks away from each other for our remaining 3 years in England. Norene was right, Michele and I were just about inseparable. We walked our kids to school together, we scrapbooked at Michele's house with other friends every Tuesday, we went shopping in Cambridge...lots! and we also worshipped at the same church together. Thank you Lord for this dear sweet friend.
Did I mention that Michele is also from Arkansas!? We have seen the Robinettes throughout the years and email (ok, I email!! ha) regularly. They just came through AR on their way from FL to Ohio. They will be in Ohio for 4 years before, Lord willing, they retire back to AR!
We went over to nanny and papa's and papa took Michele, Kyle and Martin on a fishing trip. And we had our signature Friday night pizza. That's another thing we did quite a bit was to get together and have Friday night pizza and game night.
We sure enjoyed our visit with the Robinette's ~ here are some photos. Good timing, Rebekah is awake again.
Until next time....
