Where we are...

What a week it has been and I know I won't be able to post for about another week so I wanted to do a quick update.

We had our return to TX delayed a week due a remodel project that wasn't quite finished and basically our house is unlivable. Mark flew up last Thursday to drive us home Saturday and we had planned to come home to a house put back together and clean (remember, I have been gone 6 1/2 months). Thursday afternoon we got a call from Mark's sister that a dear friend of Mark's and classmate had just been diagnosed with luekemia and wasn't given long.....Friday night as we were packing the car to leave at 3:30 am to drive home (17 hours) we got the call she was brain dead. We drove home, dropped the kids off in an unlivable house as it was not done and kept driving to Dallas to say goodbye to Kiana. She died early Sunday morning. We were already going to be heading to New Braunfels this Friday for Mark's high school reunion (Hill Country Christian School in San Marcos) but left Tuesday to get here for family night Tuesday night, funeral Wed where Mark (and friends) sang, drove 4 1/2 hours to the grave site yesterday (Mark was a pall bearer) and drove back to New Braunfels to attend the reunion this weekend. Mark is back in Sherman tying up some work things, we have had a HUGE snag with our remodel (we are redoing floors) and aren't sure when, if ever our house will be livable without spending MEGA bucks which we don't have. Anyway.....we are emotionally spent but also SOOOO trying to keep things in perspective..."In The Light Of Eternity"....with our house situation as we said goodbye to Kiana and watched her husband and three kids (19, 16 and 14) grieve. Mark grew up in such a unique situation in his small school and we have had so many laughs and so many cries in the last few days with his gang who are still best friends. We had already planned on leaving the kids down here at Mark's moms as we were going to go to Mexico but with the house situation we have to go home and deal with that...I still haven't unpacked from MN and have work waiting for me so that next week or so will be crazy but at some point life will get back to normal.



This weekend will be fun but also so bittersweet as Kiana was to be a part and was SO excited to spend time with old friends. Please pray for her husband Rikki, and kids Lauren, Landon, and Lacey. Her funeral was the sweetest time with over 400 attendants....she was so very loved, an incredible wife and mother, daughter, teacher, coach, friend and she will be dearly missed forever!!!! We all know without a doubt she is with our Savior and her legacy will live on!!!!

Wordless Wednesday

My Oldest friends....

Cheryl, Sharon, Cindy, Melissa, Brenda

Things have been busy around here as we are wrapping up our time in MN. One of the things that has kept us around was a visit from my oldest friend. Cheryl and I met in 3rd grade at church and soon her family moved out near mine and we became neighbors. We were cheerleaders together, played flute together, went to Bethel College our freshman year together, were married a year apart and I had Madi and Kailee within months of her Elsie and Noah. She now lives in Thailand were she and her husband are missionaries.

One of the blessings in where we grew up are the incredible frienships that were made. Cheryl and I are blessed by a group of friends who we have grown up with and remain our best friends to this day. Several years ago we started getting together once a year to catch up with each other, share joys and hard things and we always end by praying for one another. It was three summers ago during one of those times I asked them to pray for an answer to my desire to adopt AND that night was when God whispered YES to my heart...(they knew more than anyone how badly I wanted this as I had talked about it my WHOLE life) anyway.....we have come a long way from quirky little girls. We experienced jr. high and high school struggles alongside each other, saw each other thru young heartbreaks, stood at each other's weddings, welcomed LOTS of litle ones, shared losses and grew in the Lord together. Several of us went to Youth With A Mission (YWAM) as we all share a love of missions and I hear adoption talk among a couple of them... To have a group of women who know ALL there is to know about one another and feel complete trust in is a rare gift. Our times together are few and far between now but our friendships remain strong and we always share many laughs, sometimes amid some tears.

Last Friday we spent the day together at a friends cabin. It was a small group this year but as always our time was not waisted! We wish the rest could have joined us......we missed you!

(Earlier in the week those who could came out with kids. It is great to see them re-connect although they don't see much of each other.......so fun to see them having fun together like we used to! We usually do a lake day together every summer also but that didn't happen this time. MN is taking its sweet time in warming up!) Pictures below.

Some of the kid crew


Madalyn and Elsie (14). Face book keeps them connected although Elsie lives in Thailand.

Noah, Travis and Kailee (the 12 year olds)
Melissa and daughter, Sarah

17 years ago today.....

......I became a mom for the first time as we welcomed Jordan Trey...it was a very hard and long labor and so began our life with our first born. He has broken us in well!!! It is SO hard to believe that we have a child this old, we certianly do not feel like 17 years have gone by and as I look at Hudson, just three, I know I will be saying this about him in just a few short years.

Jordan has taught me more about myself and life than probably anyone I know. I don't know if it because he our first born, which we tend to be oh, so hard on or if it his "intense" personality but when you talk about "Iron sharpens Iron'...that would be our son. He has incredible descernment, is very black and white and has a deep sense of what is just. It has been hard to let him go some this year and I don't think I was ever prepared for the changes that happen in a mom/son relationship as they sit in that space between boyhood and manhood. Thankfully I have a husband who knows what is like to be a boy/man and can gently remind me "Don't expect him to respond like a girl/woman would....he isn't made that way".

Jordan wrote some things about himself in a recent project for school and I think I learned as much about my son in his writing than I have in 17 years of parenting him. His faith shapes who he is, he is much harder on himself than he lets on, he has a deep desire to be respected and one of his heroes is someone with a disability, to name just a few things.

Of all the kids I have been most proud of Jordan in our move to MN. We gave him the option of staying at home with dad as what high school kid wants to change schools mid-year? He looked at it as a great opportunity and has had an awesome semester. He has made great friends and today those friends have taken him for the day with lots of suprises in store. How cool is that for a bunch of highschool boys? Jordan has loved his time here so well he is reluctant to go home and we have decided to let him stay until soccer season starts in early August, another, "letting go" moment. Tomorrow night we will be making dinner for his buddies so pictures will have to wait until then.

We love you Jordan and wouldn't want you any other way!

wordless wednesday