Meeting Friends for the First Time

Sometimes when we are out and about, people who we don't know will say hi and tell us that they read my blog.  It's always nice when people do say hi and the boys think it's pretty cool that people 'know' them.  We couldn't believe it when we were in Sydney one time and a guy at the airport came up to us and asked me if I was Lisa and said that his wife reads my blog, and how excited she would be when he got home and told her that he met us. 

I have to admit though that I panic for a second and try to remember what we were doing just before someone says hi, because no doubt we were just being our normal selves and I'm sure the boys were being feral and I was being cranky! :)

A few months ago I got an email from a guy named Brandon, telling me that his wife Chrissy always talks to him about us as she reads my blog and follows me on Instagram. He asked me if I knew her but said he understood if I didn't, and I told him that of course I knew who she was, as she has been so kind to me and the boys over the last year or so, and we had become friends on Facebook a while ago.    I also knew she had met up with some of my widow friends in the USA and I was so jealous when they did, as I just wished I could meet them all in person sometime.  

He told me he was planning a surprise trip for her to Tasmania.   They are American, but currently live in Perth, Western Australia with their five kids, and he was hoping that we may be able to meet up on their trip down here as a surprise for her.   We emailed back and forth for a little while, and I was looking forward to meeting them in person.

I was actually also very nervous about meeting them, because I'm sure they have some illusion that we are this amazing family, and told Brandon that she would then realise that we are nothing like what she imagined!

We set up a time to meet them for tea.  Brandon said he wanted to take us out for tea, and to choose a restaurant that the boys would like.  I joked with him that Maccas was their favourite (it's actually true! So much like their Dad!) but said that they also like going to Hogs Breath Cafe, so we met there.

I actually thought that once Chrissy knew that she was coming to Tasmania that he would've also told her that we were meeting them for tea, but she actually had no idea.  I was waiting out the front for them and recognised them as soon as I saw them.  

When Chrissy saw me she screamed, and it was then that I realised that she didn't know I was going to be there to meet them.  She told me that when she realised she was coming to Tasmania the first thing she said to Brandon was that she wished she knew earlier so she could maybe arrange to meet up with me.   Little did she know!

It was so fun to meet them, and we had a lovely couple of hours together.

They were here the same weekend that my Mum moved into her new house, so it was a busy time for us and I wished that we could've spent more time with them, but it was nice to get texts with photos of their adventures while they were in Tassie for a couple of days.  Hopefully they'll come back again another time with their kids and will spend more time exploring. 

Thank you Brandon for setting it all up and for tea (and why didn't we get any pics of you in it?!).  It was so fun to meet both of you in person.