This blog title is already misleading because I did not just come home from vacation. However, I feel like I have taken a huge break from my blog entirely. I am one of those people that wants to be committed to writing on a blog, and I have a ton of great ideas to write about, but taking the time to sit down and write out my thoughts is another story. I look at other people’s blogs and think, “I really should commit more time to that,” but I have my time invested in so many other areas right now. I’m starting some new exciting journeys this year and I want to be documenting them as they happen.

One thing I did recently was host an informational session about foster care. And by “hosted” I mean hosted. I just organized the event and attended. I was there to glean knowledge as much as everyone else was. My husband and I plan to become certified foster parents before the summer months. We talked years ago about becoming foster parents, but the Lord opened up the door for us to adopt our son and the idea sat on the back-burner for a while. But we revisited it this summer and decided it was definitely something we wanted to do as a family.

My sister is a licensed social worker and counsels a lot of foster/adopted kids. She has talked to me so much about the need for good foster homes and the needs of the children involved. She has been encouraging me to foster for a few years now. I think at first I felt like maybe I wasn’t equipped to handle it, but I think that less and less. I think ultimately, kids have the same human needs... but, because of life circumstances, most outside of their own control, kids are all on different parts of the needs-spectrum. The Lord will equip and prepare us for the children he places in our care, whether those placements are temporary or permanent. But at the end of the day, we strongly believe that it is the church’s responsibility to care for these children, and we want to do our part.

Late January/Early February of 2013 I went to Pennsylvania to visit my best friend, Ashley, who was expecting her firstborn, a daughter.  She was having her baby shower on the 2nd of February and asked if I could lead a "devotional" of sorts with the women who would be there.  "I know it isn't traditional for a baby shower," she told me.  "But it is so important to me that our daughter is raised under Godly principles, so I want my baby shower to keep a biblical focus."  I thought the idea was great, and I naturally agreed and began putting together all that I wanted to share with the women who were going to, in one way or another, impact this little girl's life.

The beginning of February we set our on our second adoption journey. Without going into much detail, we were put in touch with people in Michigan, looking for a family with whom to place their baby for adoption. The baby would come in September and we gladly accepted the opportunity to adopt the coming baby. We told our families about the exciting news shortly after, but I was very hesitant to post anything publicly until, A. Birth mom was further along in her pregnancy, and B. We knew this was a for-sure thing. When we adopted Emmanuel, I didn't post anything publicly until he was around 2 or 3 weeks old. The idea of "putting myself out there" and then having to tell everyone it didn't work out, was terrifying to me. I didn't want to be in that position.

So, I had an interesting encounter Thursday night with my 1 and 1/2 year old. We were playing and I got him a little riled up... not that I ever do that... but, he got a little crazy excited and clawed at my face. Those little baby nails are wicked sharp, I tell you! Anyway, his finger went into my eye and scratched my eyeball. This happened at like 8:30pm. I pretty much closed my eyes around 9pm and couldn't open them again til Friday at around noon.

Friday morning Mitch took me to the health center in town and they took a look at my eye. I didn't sleep Thursday night because I was in so much pain. I know it sounds ridiculous, but a sore eyeball is the worst thing ever!!! I literally couldn't open my eyes. They put numbing drops in my eye so that I could open it for them to look out. It took two nurses to get my eye open enough to put the drops in. They warned me it would burn for a minute, but would soon be numb. My whole body was shaking in pain while they pried my eye open. As soon as the drops hit my eye, my body slowed down. The nurses asked, "doesn't in burn?" I said, "actually, it feels kinda good." They told me normally they have to hold people down because the burning is so bad. I guess the pain of the scratched eyeball was worse.

That January my little sister was getting married.  I had never met her fiance, but I was traveling to Northern Michigan from Central New York to be part of the wedding.  I hadn't really seen my sister in a year, and, for many reasons, I was very nervous.  My sister and I were very close, but had fallen out of touch over that year.  The whole story is for another blog post entirely, but, all that to say, I had been afraid that our relationship was never going to be what it was.  Some arguments between family members never recover.  Thankfully ours did, and we are just as close as we were, if not closer.  But I had been dealing with so much on my own that I was very nervous about how I would handle the whole wedding week.