When Blogs Collide...

I'm beginning to realize that I blog in spurts.  You can probably gauge how busy our life is at the present moment by how frequently or infrequently I post.  To be honest, this past weekend was the first weekend in a loooooonnnnnnnggggg time that we had nothing going on.  And that's only because our original plans got canceled as Josh's half IronMan was downgraded to an Olympic-distance due to the heat.  [Speaking of the heat... WHEN is it going to end??  This summer has been downright ridiculous!]  Most of our busy has been due to races actually and between marathons, half marathons, 10K's, and triathlons we seem to be traveling all over the surrounding area every other weekend.  It feels good to be back to our old racing selves, fully enjoying the season.

But along with our travels, we often find ourselves in a town where we have old friends... and sometimes even friends that we've never even met!  The first came on a trip to Nashville back in May when Josh ran the Nashville Marathon.  Even though we were just there for one night, we still managed to meet up with one of my favorite gals, Kristen, who I follow over at Add-and-Land.  I had seen her last August, but hadn't seen her daughter since she was just weeks old (and she's now six!) and had never seen her son in person.  Jake and Landon were like two peas in a pod... it could not have made me happier!

Coming along as well was my blog-only friend, Jessica from The Parsonage Family.  This was the first time I've ever met someone whom I only "know" from the blog-world, and it was so amazing to see her and feel like we were old friends.  Her husband and sweet kiddos were there, too, and although they are adorable in pictures, I definitely think all kids are cuter in person.  She did a better recap of the trip that you can find here and here's a picture of (most of) our crew.  Notice which child is missing... Jake had decided to run around like a maniac at this point, which was okay considering that he had spent four hours in the car AND gotten car sick on the way there!  He's such a trooper.  In this picture though, the back of Landon's head could pass for Jake!

Jess and I hit it off so well in fact that we recently met up again for lunch when she was up visiting her parents.  I never would have imagined that an online friendship would be something that I would ever have, or that it would translate into real life so well.  She and I have a ton in common as we're both married to pastors, so that helps, too.

THEN... on our way back from Georgia a few weekends ago, I asked Josh if we could possibly make a quick pit stop in Knoxville to visit Channa from My Boys.  Channa and I met late in college, but really reconnected (online of course) when we were both pregnant for the first time at the same time.  Her boy was due in February and Jake in March and we both used blogs to journal the experience and probably became each other's most avid readers at that time.  Then we both had kiddo #2 and have felt like we've known each other's kids all their lives.  I can't even explain it.  We've been trying to get together for YEARS and a quick lunch at Chick-Fil-A finally worked out.  Seeing our kids play together was like a dream come true:

I know I've mentioned before that occasionally I toy with the idea of giving up the blog, but then I think about these friendship and how real and rich they are due to this little outlet.  It's so strange and I never would have expected this, but I absolutely love it!  I follow many others and read quite a few that I don't actually follow, too, and hope that this can happen more in the future.  And if you're ever passing through Eastern Kentucky and would like our blogs to collide, I'd love for that to happen, too!