I met Mary right after we graduated from high school. We spent two weeks together at Franciscan University of Steubenville serving on the Workcrew for the High School Youth Conferences. It was a life changing two weeks. We prayed, we worked, we learned, we sang, we laughed, we made friendships. Some that would last a short time and some a long time. Many of those friends I kept in touch with through college as pen pals, some I lost touch with as the years went on. I reconnected with some of them when I worked at Francsican and some I would reconnect with years later on Facebook.
Mary was one of those friends who I wrote back and forth with in college for awhile, and then lost touch with, until we found each other on Facebook. Then one day last year she messaged me and asked me to call her. She had been living out east and she, her husband and five children were considering moving to Indiana! I was so excited and couldn't wait for their arrival and to reconnect in person after so many years. They arrived in May and enrolled their kids at the same school where our kids attend.
I remember my time with Mary during Workcrew and she was a lot of fun, easy to get along with and made me laugh! She was someone I wanted to be friends with and as an odd one out, not knowing anyone else that week when I arrived, I was grateful that she welcomed me in. It has been so delightful to have her in our church and school community (even though we don't hang out nearly enough...mom life is busy!).
I was so excited when she asked me to do their family portraits. Here are just a few of my favorites, but it was sure hard to chose only a few!
Mary--thank you for your friendship, thank you for welcoming and friendly spirit! Let's have coffee soon!!!!
PS the last image is my FAVORITE!!! (Smarty Pants thought he was smart by not making a funny face in ANY of the silly pictures! I found that funny!)
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