Andrea

I had the very best surprise yesterday morning right before leaving for preschool. Let me take you back a little bit when Cassie and Emmy were juniors in high school. A good friend of theirs had a exchange student from Brazil. It just so happened that this exchange students Mom and this exchange students family's Mom had been friends thru an exchange program years before. Andrea spent lots of time at our house. And we grew very fond of her. Her family came from Brazil to visit one winter...during "snow season". They had never seen snow before. They could never get warm. ( I know that feeling from spending 6 winters in WI) Andrea's parents invited Cassie and Emmy for the summer between their junior and senior years of high school.
We kept in touch for awhile then something happened and we lost contact. (Aren't they stunning. Andrea looks just the same...I can hear her laughing in my ear.)
We would call the number Andrea had given us, we sent letters and Christmas cards...none of which was ever returned. We had no idea where she was. (Just tonight I found out about the time we moved to WI she had moved back to Brazil.) We have been wondering. While we were wondering where she was, she was doing the same about us. The only contact person between us moved to Columbus and then we moved to WI. We never thought we would hear from her again and she was thinking the same. But that all came to a screeching halt last night. Seems that Andrea's husband is pretty good with the computer and finding people.
Andrea has been so upset recently about not knowing where we were that she was driving him crazy. So the night before last he stayed up all night searching the Internet for us. I imagine that he has seen just a few pictures of all of us...so he recognized us on this little old silly blog. He told her what he had found... she recognized Mamaw and Papaw. Andrea said all that she could do was cry and yell our names. They have since read thru the entire blog. She sent us an email and called Emmy last night and talked for an hour. Then as a surprise to me...called and talked to me for almost an hour.
She tried to get in touch with Cassie but because of the time difference Cassie was in church with her phone turned off. When I first spoke to her all she could say was "just talk and let me hear your voice...it really is you..." There were just a few tears shed and I tried to catch up with all the years in one hour. She speaks so fast...most of the time in pretty good English but that Portuguese slips in there once in awhile and then I don't have a clue about what she is talking about. We learned that she works for Holiday Inn and she met her husband through work. They have been married for two years. They are living in her Aunt Peach's apartment in downtown. All is well with the rest of the family. We laughed. We creid. And we promised not to loose each other again. She comes to the states once a year and we are already planning a party!