Surrogate Family

Maybe we have told you about Kip and Nellie before. They are some of our closest friends and actually some of our first friends here in Durango. They took us to lunch the first Sunday we attended St. Mark's and we were hooked. They have a way with taking both the young families and college students under their wings and spending time with them which results in nothing less than us all falling in love with them. They are great and have become our surrogate family out in the Rockies. Their kids live far away and our family does too so we've sort of found each other. 

Kip, although is a medical doc by trade is a passionate armchair philosopher. He teaches a medical ethics class up at the college on occasion and is always pulling Justin's ear about some book or philosophical topic. 

Nellie never comes over without a book from her own kids collection and no matter how busy and crazy our visit, always manages to find a quiet corner (even if it's the floor!) to read a story to the boys before she leaves.

They love to have the boys over for some hang time. It's good for us, them and especially for the boys. They always have something fun up their sleeves. Last month, they spent the afternoon, reading about and identifying real flies in all their developmental stages and the fishing flies that correspond to them over lunch.

 They then packed up and headed to the river to catch them like real entomologists. The boys are fascinated and come home chitter-chattering about the day, all they found and of course little vials full of writhing critters!

Who's more in to this?!?! Kip or the boys?

More recently, we have heard the sad story of the castle legos that were bought for their girls years ago and never really loved to their full capacity. But alas! The McBrayer boys LOVE legos. So the long forgotten legos have been resurrected (and added to thanks to Ebay and Nellies expertise in finding just the right thing on there). The boys were invited over for a reading of King Arthur comic strips (one of Kip's childhood favorites in need of an very attentive audience!), smoothies and castle lego time.

Smoothies with Nellie. Way better than the ones I make at home. 

Nellie getting a lesson on how these things work.

These two are comparing castles and tackling a book of directions for a hand cart.

Very special people, these two. And that is precisely why we asked them to stand next to us as God parents to our boys as Patrick was baptized today. Just one of those days you will remember for the rest of your life. A true blessing to all of us!