International visitors

How can it be August already? While working for the university, the arrival of August was a reality check that a new school year was mere weeks away, which meant things were about to get very busy. This year, August feels so very different!

In the last two weeks, we've been blessed to have three sets of international visitors visit.

The first was our friend, Jenny.

While she is, in fact, American, she's been living in Turkey for the last two years. We had the opportunity to visit her in Turkey in January 2010, but it was such a treat to have our friend back in Norman. She's a world changer!

Our second set of visitors came all the way from The Netherlands! We met Jolien when she was an exchange student here at OU almost two years ago, and she returned to Norman to visit. It was a highlight of our summer to get to see her after all of this time, and we had the added bonus of meeting her mom, Lydia!

These two Dutch women were an absolute blast to have in town. They are so much fun. When Jolien was here as a student, she and her roommate (hi, Charlotte!) rented a car and drove to the Grand Canyon. Suffice it to say that the trip was an adventure (rental car catastrophe with no cell phones), but Jolien was ready to do it again with her mom. So, once again, she rented a car and drove to the Grand Canyon, and of course, it was another adventure!

The fun just kept coming! Our next visitors were one of my best friends from high school and his wife. Tim and Min reside in NYC, after having lived all over the world, and this was my first time to meet Min. Somehow, I have no photos of this visit. So, I'm borrowing one of theirs from facebook!

These two lovebirds just celebrated their second wedding anniversary, and I have to say, they couldn't be more perfect for each other. I never had doubt of Tim's ability to charm a woman into marrying him, but let me just say that he not only married a BEAUTY, but she's stinkin' smart and incredibly fun. So, well done, Timothy Brooks. Well done.

We feel so blessed to have friends from every corner of the planet, and if we could just arrange these mini-reunions once a year...