Friends for Life

Last week was a long and dif­fi­cult week for some rea­son. By Fri­day I was absolutely exhausted and we still had to drive to Fresno. Thank­fully, I was very excited about the trip. We were going to spend the week­end with our new friends — the Niko­ras. After mak­ing the drive along the beau­ti­ful Cal­i­for­nia high­ways and past the golden corn fields, we were wel­comed into their home and served enchi­ladas. My mouth dropped when she told me because you all know that Mex­i­can is our favorite food! Well, if you didn’t, Mex­i­can is our favorite food! Need­less to say, I knew from that point on, we were in for a great weekend.

How­ever, my every expec­ta­tion was exceeded. This is one great fam­ily! Not only did they serve us Mex­i­can food, but we woke up Sat­ur­day morn­ing and were taken to THE BEST pan­cake place ever. I began to won­der if Yana had some­how secretly con­tacted my mother to find out what my favorite things are. Because going out to break­fast on lazy Sat­ur­days is by far at the top of my “favorite things to do list”. And yes, all of my entries in my “favorite things to do list” some­how involve food.

But all jok­ing aside, this is a very spe­cial fam­ily. Our week­end with them felt like a mini-vacation. You know how your drive or flight home from vaca­tion usu­ally leads you into a deep depres­sion? Well that was me on our drive home. Poor Vitaliy had to drive home with Crabby Can­dace for 3 hours, but we just didn’t want it to end. Yana and Emik spoiled us with yummy food, inspired us to enjoy life with ease, and reminded us what is impor­tant in life. We left com­pletely full both phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally speaking.

So today as I write this, I am thank­ful for friend­ship. We haven’t known Yana and Emik for very long, but I am assured they will be friends for life. We love you, all four of you!

~Can­dace

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Emik and Yana are another husband/wife pho­tog­ra­phy team so nat­u­rally we had to do a photo ses­sion while we were with them. Here is a sneak peek!