our friends have come and gone.

Every place we lived, we had a batch of "homeschool friends". Our poor mom tried her hardest to find families with similar interests as us. The only reason I think she did this was to assure ourselves a stable relationship with a family not unlike our own, that would be fun to have over for holidays, like the 4th of July, where the dads would barbeque hot dogs, and the moms would sit round quilting.
This never happened.
Amongst our search of suitable families, we became friends with our local "Tae-kwon-do" trainers (certified black belts!) But when you are forced to do extra push-ups at the end of the day because you and the teachers daughter got in a fight, its usually not a good sign of a healthy friendship. and besides, they were crazy.
One family i remember in particular, seemed alright (they had bible names!) They even introduced me to fun and cool new games, where you fight wizards and dragons, and get to re-inact fight scenes with swords and staffs and things! dungeons and dragons, they called it. but i dont think my mom liked it much because shortly after, i stopped going over there.
There was one family, who i loved the best. they had three girls, all the same ages as my sisters and I. they too were homeschooled, but didnt look like it. they were pretty and cool, and they became a constant staple. But i remember thinking they were strange because they refused to ever go to church. didn't go to church! it was ludacris! but sometimes we would go over there on weeknights and do what they called a "house church". They always let me pick out one song we would all sing from their hand-made hymnals. I always picked the same song. and I loved it.
I didn't realize this until recently, but I am pretty sure that family saved my life. They were completely out of place in that state, but they made the best of it. They were comfortable and nice, and we had hours of endless entertainment on a daily basis.
One day, they invited us over and said that they were getting new carpet the very next day. they gave us each a marker, and told us to have at it. the whole carpet! the living room, stairs, bedrooms, and even the bathrooms! to this day, i have never seen better carpet art. to this day, I wonder what those girls are doing now, and i wonder if they remember the trampoline slumber parties, the "house church" and the walks around "buck lake". I wonder if they would recognize me, and I wonder if we would still be friends. of all the homeschool friends i've had, they are my favorite.
and i miss them terribly.