There's No Place Like . .

As I was putting Leslie to bed last night, she had tears brimming in her eyes and she said, "I wanna go home . . "

Eastin called me up to her room about an hour after she turned her lights off to go to sleep. She had red eyes and a pouty bottom lip. "Mom . . I miss New Jersey!" And the tears started to fall.

I had the same symptoms yesterday morning while I was getting ready for church. Makes it hard to put on make-up.

We're all suffering from homesickness and friendsickness. We started back to school this morning, but I had to force it to happen. Most of our time was spent working on the sofa, me with an arm around each girl, trying to comfort them and keep them focused on their work at the same time.

I have a meeting tomorrow night with the moms in the homeschool support group, so hopefully I'll meet some new families there with possible playmates for the girls. Lexi next door has been great (in fact, she's over playing with the girls now), but they need more than one good friend. I know I asked many of you to pray about this, and I'm going to ask again.

Please pray that Leslie will find at least one or two "BFFs" -- girls that she has a lot in common with, that she can share secrets with. She left a couple of these in NJ. And every teenage girl needs her BFFs.

Please pray that Eastin will find playmates that get her -- that understand her, appreciate her, enjoy her, and seek out her company.

In fact, if we're going to pray boldly, I would love to meet a family or two that mixes well with our whole family. Dads that enjoy each other, moms that connect, kids that get along. Keith and I haven't had any real "couple friends" probably since we were in the singles group in Wichita. That's going on two decades now.

Everyone needs a BFF, after all.