Our First Friendsgiving

If you've been around here for a while you know, we have moved a lot and had to start over a lot.  

We have spent a lot of time making friends and connections in 5 different cities.

We are coming up on our 2 year anniversary in Southern Indiana and you can imagine the excitement I felt when I received an invitation for a neighborhood Friendsgiving this year!!  I may have gotten teary eyed.  This is a totally new circle of friends from all over that enjoy hanging out together in our neighborhood.  We've all got kids, some go to the same church, some go to the same school and they all have interesting jobs and interesting stories.

Friendsgiving 2023: Look at that delicious plate!

I've worked SO HARD for the past couple of years to make friends at school, at church, in our neighborhood and in our community.  I have said YES to a lot of things in the hopes of making new friends and things are finally clicking.  I had to do a lot of inviting and a lot of reaching out to people, but I'm making friends and I'm thrilled about it.

Being new means you are always learning new names and trying to find ways to connect your family to other families.  I've connected with a lot of you over the years about moving often so I hope you feel seen and encouraged today.

If you are like me, and find yourself relocating often with jobs or school, I want to be an encouraging friend to you.  The effort to make friends and connect with people is always worth the effort.  Hang out at the library.  Join a small group or two.  Find a Bible study.  Find a church home.  Be outside and talk to your neighbors and reach out to school friends for your kids.  Be the inviter.  Be the host.  And then one day people will start reciprocating and they will invite you and include you.

My friend set the prettiest tables, made take home pumpkin place cards and included my favorite candy.  The place cards were simple and sweet and have made me smile so much every time I see the pumpkin.  Thankful for you - that's the nicest sentiment this time of year! 

We each picked sides to bring and they did the turkey and drinks.  We chatted about the sides on the Facebook invitation to make sure we had a good variety.  I brought sweet potato casserole and a plate of cookies.  You know me - invite me and I'll bring cookies!  One guy said - I don't know why you'd go back to teaching, when you can bake like this!?  That made me feel good :)  Plus my cookie plate was empty at the end of the night.

The uninterrupted conversation was so fun.

The meal was amazing.

We met a few new friends.

Made new connections.

We all had a great kid free evening and can't wait to do it again soon!

I'm proud of us!!  And super thankful to my parents for hanging out with the kids this night.