3 Years Ago Today…

3 years ago today, a young woman did what was probably the hardest thing she would ever do in her life.

She bundled herself and her newborn baby girl up against the freezing cold and wind and walked down the street in her town.

It was probably in the wee hours of the early morning just before the sun began to peek over the horizon and the cold cut through her like a knife.  She dreaded what she had to do but looking at her baby’s face one last time, knew there was no other choice.

To ensure that her sweet baby girl was found quickly, she put her under the big light pole right outside the gas station in town where she knew the owner would be up shortly.

She wrapped the baby girl up as tight as she could, sat her down and maybe even kissed her cheek and whispered “Wǒ ài nǐ”and then hurried off.  She might have hidden close by to be certain her daughter was found quickly. 

We’ll never know the full story.  At least, not this side of heaven.  But I have to believe leaving that sweet baby girl behind was the hardest thing she ever had to do.

 

But in sacrifice, there is always redemption. 

Happy birthday, my precious miracle, my answer to prayer, my blessing from China.  You have made our lives 100 times more exciting.

I can’t imagine life before you.

Just Life

I am happy to report…well…that there’s not much to report!  Life is rocking along.  Work.  School.  Church.  Repeat.

But since I’m trying to do better with my blogging and I’m still so far behind, I thought I’d keep on telling you about my summer.

I think we are heading into July.  Of course we had a big time down in Pegram as is our tradition.  And Steve enjoyed that all of the US celebrated his birthday.  Unfortunately, the actual day was a complete washout so we celebrated on the 20th down in Pegram.  Kylie enjoyed the parade mostly because they throw lots of candy and who doesn’t like candy?

Kylie loved her Uncle Bob!  I think he might like her a little bit too!!

It was a super hot day and the littles in the family enjoyed some pool time!

Jenna and her friend, Gracie, dressed up for the pageant.  It was rigged and so neither of them placed but they had a really great time dressing up.  How cute are they?!?

We had a great day (or two) celebrating.  It’s one of my favorite times of the year for sure.

Looking Back and Catching Up

I don’t really have anything exciting to talk about that is current today.  I will say, I thought about blogging last night and decided I’d rather read instead and so I did.  And that felt SO good.  I think I had sucked all the enjoyment out of blogging by making it something I felt like I had to do every day!  Now that I haven’t put that pressure on myself, I feel like I enjoy it more because I blog when I want to, not when I feel like I have to.
I think I left off about mid-June…right around Jenna’s birthday.  June is always the month our church does VBS.  For a small-ish size regional campus, our VBS is a HOPPING place that week and the days immediately prior to.  Since we are in a small community, the community really comes out for VBS. 
This year, the theme was Colossal Coaster World.  I’m sure many of you right now are humming that catchy tune….yeah, well, that tune was co-written by a fabulous musician in our church named Jeremy Johnson.  He and his wife (who also has a recently released album) have a tremendous testimony that I was honored to watch unfold.  Anyway, because Steve and I both volunteered, Kylie got to attend and of course, this was Jenna’s last year (next time, she’ll have to volunteer!)

Yep, she had a t-shirt too and that’s a chocolate pop-tart in her hand!  I had to be there early since I worked registration and so Steve dressed her.  You can’t see it very well, but she had a super-matchy bow.

This is the future of the church right there.  Train them up…

Because it was her last year, Jenna was able to lead on stage with some fellow 5th graders.  She loved it.  And I loved watching her.  I loved the music and everything about VBS this year.

Both of the girls really enjoyed it.  I hope Jenna will be able to enjoy it again next year as a youth volunteer.  I think she will.  She definitely knows how to handle those kiddos! 
But she was plum tuckered out after the week was over.  We had a friend of hers spend the week with us so she could attend VBS with her. 

One afternoon (evening?), we went out to celebrate Jenna’s birthday at a local Mexican restaurant.  YUM!

June is always a great month. 

Cleft Lip/Palate Visit

Today was our annual doctor visit with the plastic surgeon who repaired Kylie’s palate more than a year and 1/2 ago.  He was still pleased with her progress.  The little hole he left in her palate for growth reasons is still the same size and we and her speech therapist feel that her speech is progressing fairly well.  She’s about 30-40% intelligible to us and even less so to others.  But that’s a long way from where she was.  We will schedule a visit with him next January and then schedule a nose revision probably in the Spring or early summer of 2015 depending on how quickly she’s growing.  At that time he will take some cartilage from her chest area (I think that’s right) and rebuild her nose from where growth has caused it to collapse.  Once that is done, the next step will be for the orthodontist to do his thing when her permanent teeth begin to come in.  She has all her baby teeth so I’m praying she has all her adult teeth too.  At some point when she is 7 or 8, they will do a bone graft to close that hole and rebuild her gum line. Lord willing those two surgeries will be it unless she opts for another lip/nose revision later.  We are VERY pleased!

Luckily, the bad weather didn’t turn out to be as bad as they were predicting, so we made the appointment.  I was very pleased to have it behind us.  It was bitterly cold though.  Schools are closed tomorrow and that includes Jenna’s school.  Amazingly enough, even Jenna’s school is closed.  But mostly due to the fact they had to cancel their scheduled teacher in-service today and then they found that several classrooms had heaters that weren’t working at all or not working adequately.  When it’s –10 wind-chill, you need those heaters working right!  So they get one more day tomorrow and then they’ll be back at school Wednesday.  Jenna is ready!

OK, so I’m caught up through the month of May.  Summer months are usually crazy busy so I might have to start breaking up these months.

June 1, Steve and I celebrated 17 years of marital bliss (well, most of it was bliss) .  We celebrated our favorite way…a meal at Stoney River.  Jenna watched Kylie for us and boy did we enjoy our couple hours alone.  We LOVE Stoney River.

These are Stoney Pups.  I could make an entire meal of them.  I’m not even joking. 

And this is the heaven that is their Coffee Cured Filet.  Thinking about it right now makes me want one.  It was SO good.  If you ever want to give us a gift, a certificate to Stoney River is a great idea! (because it’s NOT cheap!)  Hear that Stoney River owners and operators? 

A few years ago, Jenna and I went to the strawberry patch for her birthday and she really loved it.  We tried a different patch this time and while it was HOT AS THE BLAZES, we took in a great haul!

We’ve not had a birthday party for our girl in a while…and this year was no different.  We had some friend difficulties and so her actual birthday she spent at home and she opened a few gifts…

Pretty sure Kylie enjoyed that part of it.

Then, later, we had a sweet friend spend the night.  After the friend drama that ensued prior, this gal was a breath of fresh air to have around.   Incidentally, her mom was one of the Nature’s Classroom chaperones in my cabin so you know she comes from “good people”.

The next day, I took the girls swimming.  It was so hot that you couldn’t stay out of the water for long.  We were there just a few hours and then had to come home.

That gets us through most of June.  There’s nothing to say about my birthday.  No pics were taken of course because nothing special happened and I’m always behind the camera!  I’ll finish up June next time!