Meet our Spanish Fairy, Vanessa

Since it's Fairy Week I'll go ahead and call Vanessa our Spanish Fairy.  It's time that you know about our dear friend, Vanessa, who lives down the street.  Allen and I met Vanessa and her husband, Russell, a couple of days after I came home from the hospital with Ruby.  They had a newborn son, Kingston, who is 10 days older than Ruby and we were all at a neighborhood Christmas party.  Since that time their sweet family has become a huge part of our lives and our school.  Vanessa is a talented artist (check her out here www.vhglass.com) She speaks Spanish fluently and has improved the Spanish vocabulary of the students at Ingram School.  Kingston and Ruby are best of friends and Ford and Rachel love all of Russell's magic tricks.  Vanessa and Russell have also welcomed Baby Hyland to their family, so when we're all together it's a wild time!!  Somehow we began the tradition of Pizza Night on Friday nights and almost every Friday we eat pizza, hang out, and unwind from the week together.  During the week Vanessa and I usually get together a few times with all of the kids and play and eat lunch or go to story time.  When the weather warms up, I'm sure we'll all be at the park or in our own yards again playing.  Our children love Vanessa so much and trust her because they know what a kind person she is.  We are truly blessed to have such great friends right down the street.  Even Ford, who thinks everyone is a stranger, has only ever ridden in a car with me, Allen, and Vanessa!!  Even if it was the half block from our house to theirs, that is a HUGE DEAL!
Today is a special day for Pizza Night because this week was Vanessa's birthday and last week was Rachel's birthday, so it's a combo-birthday celebration time!  Rachel will be performing what she calls her first ever violin concert as her birthday present to Vanessa and we will all laugh and hang out and have a great time.
This morning we were able to go to Vanessa and Russell's house and play and get out of these same walls for a nice change of scenery.  I'll save another post for more about what we did today (and hopefully add some pictures...it's a pretty cool wrap up to the week).
I'm hoping Vanessa will add some posts here at some point because she's technically on the staff of what we call Ingram International School (or IIS if you need to shorten it).
We love you, Vanessa!