Fun with Friends, Norfolk Edition

Today we got to spend most of the day with friends. We spent the morning with our old neighbors the Trests. This is the family who took Ava to school when Jocelyn had preschool last year, and we all became good friends. Rachel is active duty Navy, so they were transferred to Norfolk just a few weeks ago. It was nice - even though it's only been a short time the kids were so excited to play together. We went to a different beach, and the kids played for hours in the sand and surf.

Then in the evening we headed to the Mannings' house. Matthew was on Ben's first ship and worked in his division. Angela and I became friends, especially when the boys went on deployment. When I was pregnant with Ava, Angela was my back up person to get me to the hospital if I went into labor while Ben was gone. And even though Ben made it home in time Angela was still there with us when Ava was born. It's been years since we've seen each other, and even though we have kept in touch over Facebook it was great to catch up with a good friend. While it has been great to have this vacation just the five of us, it is always nice to catch up with friends, and I enjoyed getting to do a lot of that today.