atlanta dreaming (and a new BFF for a-love)

Last week our whole family made the trek to Atlanta, Georgia. 

In my mind, the barn is supposed to clue you in that this picture was taken in Atlanta. Just go with it.

For those in need of catching-up or clearing-up regarding our life plans, Atlanta is where we will be moving. Sometime. Hopefully sooner than later. Our ministry's headquarters is there, and it's where we need to be. We're currently living in Minnesota with my parents while we raise our support. We don't plan on any other income besides our monthly support (made possible by viewers like you), SO we'll be in Minnesota until we make enough to live on. Our goal is to be able to move by this fall. We'll see what God thinks about that.

In any event, we needed to go check out this place that will soon be our home, so last week we did. We've been there before, but it was our first time visiting since we decided we'd be moving there, and so we were definitely viewing it with a different set of lenses. Lenses like school districts, and neighborhoods, and the nearest Target. (Well, maybe that last one was MY lens.) And also lenses like ministry opportunities, and overlap between WDA's needs and our gifts, and potential friends.

We had an awesome, vision-inducing trip on all of those fronts. Many of the things we're now dreaming about will surely appear on our upcoming blogs and newsletters. Community-building, church-planting, house-buying dreams. But I'd say a major highlight of our trip involved that last lens: our potential Atlanta friends.

I'd have to say Annabel has found a new potential BFF:

Ahh, the love. 

This beautiful boy, Mr. Judah David Dukes, is the offspring of two of our new (or maybe not-so-new) favorite people, Keight and Jesse Dukes. The truth is we've been internet-stalking them for over a year, or at least I've been stalking Keight, since Nate had actually met both of them and I hung out with Jesse at last year's staff conference. Jesse's dad Bob is the president of WDA, and Jesse's on staff with us. (Here's where I should be putting a picture of the two of them, but I guess while we were hanging out we were too busy taking pictures of our kids and failed to get any of the grown-ups.) Keight's blog is a personal favorite and happens to be THE blog that got me into this whole Christian-crafty-mama blogging subculture. I shall be forever grateful. If you appreciate my blog at all, you should definitely check out hers, as she was my initial inspiration. Plus she's got even less of a TMI filter than me, which always makes for an honest, refreshing, and entertaining read. (She's also all three of those things in real life.) We loved our time with these guys and look forward to hanging out and doing ministry with them for years to come.

Keight, Levi, and Judah - who happens to be the sweetest baby-wrangler ever. He was so tender with Levi.

Like I was saying...

...the sweetest, most tender little boy ever. (Judah, not Levi, though my baby is certainly yummy.) I kind of wanted to keep him. (Maybe Annabel can help me out with this one day? No pressure...)

As much fun as we grown-ups had, I think our two eldest enjoyed each other even more. You already saw the spontaneous hug up above (which was not posed, by the way - at least not the initial spontaneous embrace, though there may or may not have been a bit of "Wait wait! Let's take a picture!" to capture the magic). Annabel & Judah spent most of their time doing this:

In perpetual motion. Happy as clams endlessly chasing each other back and forth, and hugging upon collision.

And a little of this:

I SO hope we get to use this against them both in the future. Nice stretchy Cars butt, Judah.

...And a whole lot more of this:

The newly-enamored pair, with cheeks bright red from running after each other all night.

Yes, yes; good times and greasy burgers were had by all. Miss Layla, their beautiful terminator of a 15-month-old, slept through most of this action. In future hang-out times I'm sure she'll be in on the love too. 

Friends like this make us even more super-stoked about the day when we can actually pack up and move to the good ol' South. Annabel and Judah definitely need some more quality time.