I have been blogging for years. Publicly blogging for over 2 years now, and have had a more private blog for over 5 years. This blog was my first public blog, and I NEVER could have imagined what God had in store for me here! As many of you know, hours and hours are poured into this blog and my online life in general and I have always seen this as my ministry for this season of my life. I love doing it and am thankful for the many blessings that come from it and for the ways I can serve others by sharing my gifts and talents.
I must say though, that God has blessed me beyond my wildest blogging dreams this past week. He has brought real LIVE friends into my life! Many of you reading are women I know by name and consider great online friends, and I was blessed this past week to turn 2 of those online friends into REAL LIVE friends!!!!!
First, I got to meet my Totally Tots partner (we are running the blog entirely as a team now), Jolanthe from Homeschool Creations (& No Ordinary Moments)…
Her husband was on a business trip in my area and she tagged along so we could meet! She came over on Monday and hung out with us for part of school (stay tuned to the Tot School post on Sunday), and she stayed throughout the day and evening, not leaving until 10:30pm…we had so much fun! We spent hours in the sunshine on my back deck like this…
We hashed out many Totally Tots things (big changes going on over there soon), and then had tons of fun just being friends. We went to Ikea and Target together and had a blast. We truly are two of a kind and I am so thankful God used this blog to bring us together. We have been online buds for over a year now and it is so nice to now know her in real life…love you Jolanthe.
As if that wasn’t good enough, I got to meet yet another wonderful friend I met online, who I have also known for close to a year! Jill from Forever n Ever n Always lives about 45 minutes from me and I have been trying to get my kids up there to visit for months now and it has just never worked out. With jolanthe being here, we just knew we had to make it work! Jolanthe picked me and my kids up and we drove up to Jill’s house for the day on Wednesday!
What a joy it was to meet her beautiful children, all 8 of them!!!! My 3 absolutely had a blast and have asked me many times since then when we can go back to Miss Jill’s house!
We enjoyed one of Jill’s healthy lunches…
We had a blast outside on a beautiful fall day! My inner city kiddos didn’t know what to do with all of that green open space!!!
Jill’s kids loved Ladybug, it was so cute to see her sweet face just light up for each of them…she’s a very friendly baby so she loved all of the attention she got…
Jolanthe didn’t have her 4 kiddos with her, but she had a great time playing with all of the rest of the kids, we had plenty to go around!
Thank you God for these two women you have brought into my life, and for the many others I know from my blog(s). It amazes me still that my blogs have led to these wonderful blessings!