Family, Fun and the Fryes

This past week has been filled with family fun. I love that! Sometimes it's so hard to fit in that time spent with those who really mean the most to you.

So first, of all, I want to send out a big congratulations to the newest member of the family, my soon-to-be brother-in-law, Nate! and my big sister Beka! The future Mr. & Mrs. Frye!! It's now been a little over a week since Nate popped the question, and we've already started diving into the whole wedding process all over again (Bless my parents' hearts... it'll end up being about 17 months straight of wedding planning!) Good thing we've already got our feet wet on this whole process.

I'm so excited about being a part of a wedding that's not my own. I'll get my first experience at one of my very best friends' weddings in just about 5 weeks! I love weddings and I'm definitely looking forward to taking on a role that's not a guest, but not the bride either. Once my sister's comes around I should be a seasoned pro at this! I like that I'll have the chance to repay the favors that she did for me throughout my whole wedding planning process (however, I know that I will never do as much for her as she did for me).

Secondly, this week some of my favorite people in the world were in town from the Sunshine State! My cousins and their kids. I try to soak up every minute with them when they're in town, so we celebrated with Beka & Nate with a cook out, had the whole family over to my house for muffins and coffee, met up with some friends and my parents that evening for another cookout, then grabbed lunch together the next day (Like I said, I take advantage of every minute possible). The most exciting part of the whole weekend was hearing them seriously talk about the possibility of moving here to NC. So T & K, you can consider this my official plea to make that happen!

I probably have more respect for these cousins than just about anyone in the world. They married young, at 20 and 18, had their first child just a couple of years later, and within months, not only went through the tragedy of losing a parent, but the 2 of them stepped up and took in my cousin's half-brothers, who were 12 and 11 (I believe) at the time. Can you imagine?? A couple month old baby, and suddenly you're 20 years trying to raise 2 almost-teens! But by the grace of God, they survived, and did so beautifully! And now have another 2 children of their own.

These are the kind of people that I hope to be like someday... that I hope I'm like today. Although I pray I'm never put in a similar situation, I'd like to believe that if I was, that I'd prevail as admirably as they did (Wow, I'm getting a little choked up writing this). Now they've been married for 15 years and have the most amazing family. It's a family that I'm so proud to be a part of and hope, in the future, to be able to spend more times with them like this past weekend.