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| Can you taste the sweat and dust? In our taxi on the way to Guinea & Sierra Leone - April 2009 |
After living and loving in Albuquerque, NM for Esther & Alaric's wedding, I headed to Phoenix, AZ to see my buds Joe & Ashley - and their (now two!) babies, Mia & Tucker. I already waxed poetic about how I know Joe and Ashley in this post when I spent ten days with the Wollersheims in 2011 (wowsas - y'all are some generous friends letting me crash that long!).
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| Just living the dream on Banana Island in Sierra Leone |
Back in 2011 I wondered what it would be like to visit with the Wollersheims in the US - since all of our friendship initially revolved around Mali. Of course, I wonder no more and am so thankful to have such dear friends who knew me during such an impactful period of my life. I loved going down this rabbit hole of memories, too - so many good times.
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| That time Joe convinced us climbing Hombori was no big deal. |
This trip, I just spent two days in Phoenix but we still packed a lot in! We went to Mexican with Ashley's brother, Bubba, and his wife, Becky, to celebrate Ash's birthday and then spent the next day traveling to Sedona and soaking up the cliffs (while eating ice cream :) I loved getting to know Tucker (who was just three months old when he came to our wedding in 2013!) and seeing how much Mia has grown since I met her when she was just seven months old back in 2011.
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| One of the most epic pictures I've ever taken. |
While our lives have changed considerably since Mali (even since our visit in 2011!), and instead of eating stale bread and laughing cow cheese on the top of Hombori or in the back of a taxi on the way to Guinea we were eating cheese sticks and ginger ale in Joe & Ashley's pool - our friendship has been a true constant. It is such a blessing to have lifelong friends like Joe & Ashley and to be a part of their lives as their family grows. I'm already looking forward to our next visit!
And now here we are five years later - two Wollersheim babies out and one Bangoura baby on the way! My oh my how life changes in beautiful ways!
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| Beauties! |
Some of my favorite parts of the trip include: sharing a room with Tucker and him waking up in the morning in his crib, me rolling over to look at him and then him starting to grin like the little sweet pea that he is; Mia asking me if I was able to get ready quickly so we could go swimming (in nearly matching bathing suits no less!); and Mia asking on our way home from Sedona when Jenny (me) would be going home...hah!
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| Making cleaning out the dishwasher better since 2013 |
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| Sedona |
See more pictures from my trip
here!
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