Bex and Her Buddy Paul

Not too long after we moved to Kentucky we crossed paths with Paul and quickly became good friends. I'm not exactly sure how the friendship started but I think it had to do some friendly competition over a chili cookoff at church. Paul won that year and Brian came in second. He ended up confessing to Brian that the chili came from a fast food restaurant but he had doctored it up. They shared a good laugh and then laughed even some more when Brian shared his secret ingredient for his chili. We've been the best of buddies ever since.

The icing on the cake though is that he absolutely adores our children. He has taken them for us a couple of times when we had some family emergencies and when he does take them it typically involves some kind of food treat and cruising along with the windows down, the sunroof open and the music blaring. My kids think he's awesome. We also usually have Sunday lunch with him too.

We returned home from China late on a Thursday night and the next day I had taken the kids out running around, trying to keep them in the daylight to get them back on Kentucky time. Paul called and had McD's gift certifcates for us and he wanted to meet Rebecca. She was shy for a few minutes but was completely taken with him when he handed her her own bag of cheetos. What he didn't know is that he had made a friend for life with that little dumpling.

A few weeks ago the kids had car races for their AWANA group (their Sunday night church program). We hadn't been there any time at all when Rebecca spotted Paul and off she went. He was sitting at one of the tables helping with the cars and Rebecca pulled a chair over and sat right by him and then pretty much hung out with him all day. It was just too cute.

As Emma likes to say "Thank you Jesus for our friends".