How Beautiful People are Made

In counseling, I'm processing the difference between compassion and co-dependence.  When people hurt me, I often see them as wounded, hurting people and I instinctively want to make it better for THEM.  And I think there is a fairness in that, a goodness.  However, how much of that is because I feel that my self-worth is tied up in them seeing me as worthy?  I think alot!  And that's how I end up in relationships where I accept less than what is best for me.  I end up accepting things from friends and spouses that diminish my value because I don't, deep down, believe I'm worthy of being treated better.  I somehow see that I "deserve" to be last on the list.  

I think part of this is my religious background.  I was sort of raised in a religious environment where I was taught to put myself last.  My parents surely didn't put me last, it's not that.  But it wasn't considered "Christian" to expect certain things for yourself.  When someone hurt you, turn the other cheek.  Repay evil with kindness.  And you know what?  I'm passing it on to my kids too.  When someone is mean to them, I use that old expression that I learned in Sunday school, "Heap coals of kindness onto them."  Why am I teaching my children that the meaner someone is to you, the nicer you should be to them?  Isn't this pretty much what led me to be devalued in the first place, somewhat of a doormat for the past few years?  

In fact, I think Jesus was trying to tell us the importance of loving OURSELVES FIRST when He said, "Love others as you love yourself."  If we are to know how to love others, then JESUS tells us that we must know how to love ourselves. If I loved others the way I love myself, always putting them last and expecting them to take hurt upon hurt without regard for their own feelings, then I'd have no one in my life at all.  

For now, I'm really trying to learn how to love myself the way I love others.  I have to learn to protect myself the way I protect others.  I have to see myself as the hurting little girl that I see in my friends when they are angry or cross the line with me.  I have to learn these things and it's SO difficult and so painful and so lonely and so hard.  But there's no shortcut to it.  I want the blessing I know God has for me at the end of the road.  I don't want to miss it because I took a shortcut through the pain, but oh, dear, the pain! 

Matthew 22:38-39

³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[a]

It's a new day....

It's hard to get up in the mornings.  My alarm goes off and I want to pull the covers back over my head.  But, today I have a few appointments and a reason to get dressed, so that's a very good thing.  I'm trying to be intentional about how I fill my days, not over-booking, but certainly trying to keep busy.

When the rough patches hit, I confess that I want to lay down and just give up.  I just want someone else to come and tell me what to do and where I'm going to land. I want someone else to have the conversations about the tough things.  My heart is weary of all the pain.  I don't know how people go through a divorce when it's truly just "I'm no longer happy."  I could find a way to be happy if there weren't these huge transgressions.  And even then I could probably figure it out to avoid all this if all this hadn't occurred on top of it all.  I'm exhausted.  Have I said that?  Did I mention that I'm just freakin' TIRED!?  I'm tired of the fight, tired of being intentional for my kiddos, tired of trying to prop them up every day when I'm barely standing myself, tired of worrying about where the money for unexpected things is going to come from, tired of worrying about how in the heck I'm going to take care of this huge yard and four kids and a 25 year old house all by myself without my parents close by.  I'm weary of all things.  I want to have some joy, some fun, some rest, some relief from the strain of it.  I'm so tired of the guilt I feel over the legacy my children will now carry.  I swear I'd do it differently if I could stomach it.  My heart hurts at the thought of what my kids will endure for the rest of their lives.  Oh how I ache for them.  I can't stay for them, I've been told 100 times by counselors and psychiatrists that it is no more healthy for them to live in a home where there is discord than it is to live in a single parent home where there is peace.  But so far, no one has peace.  People tell me it will come.  My friends remind me of what my August and September were like and they say it's better now.  I guess it is.  But it doesn't feel better.  It feels the same.  I do know that there was a brief reprieve.  Maybe  why this feels worse.  There was a two or three week period of time where I thought things weren't too bad.  But then that seems to have only made the contrast of how I feel now more acute.

Psalm 147:3-5
"³ He heals the brokenhearted 
   and binds up their wounds. 
⁴ He determines the number of the stars 
   and calls them each by name. 
⁵ Great is our Lord and mighty in power; 
   his understanding has no limit."

Thank you, Lindsay, for reminding me of this verse.  I LOVE the thought of him literally wrapping bindings around my wound.  I think of the way I tenderly "doctor" my children's scrapes and cuts, how I make a big deal over the smallest of things and I rush to alleviate the pain of true hurts.  I can imagine our Lord doing this for me, rushing to my side when I am alone and hurting, wrapping my heart in bindings and holding them tight until the pain has eased.  

Just Breathe

I think I've quoted this before, but there is a line in a Jars of Clay song.  The song is called Work.  The line says, "I have no fear of drowning, it's the breathing that's taking all this work."  That is SO accurate for my life right now.  I have ridden this wave of emotions since April of 2010.  Days when I would wake up thinking that life was possibly resuming something that looked like normal.  Thinking, "Okay, I can do this... not exactly what I thought I wanted, but okay God, we'll go with it."  Then out of nowhere I slam hard into a space that has no oxygen, there's no normal in sight, there's only lonely and scared because how in the world am I going to do all this?  How am I going to take care of this house and four kids all by myself?  Really?!  I look around and all I see is work work work and no one to help help help.  So, I don't fear drowning.  Drowning would probably actually be better.  I'm drowning for sure.  Actually going down would mean I could stop fighting the water and the waves and just let go.  But I can't do that.  Number one, I have my kids to fight for.  I have to keep swimming (like Dory in Little Nemo, I've said to myself 1000 times and more, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....") Plus, I honestly and truly don't know HOW to stop swimming.  I've been swimming all my life.  I've been striving toward something that felt invisibly pulling me along, a feeling of unrest before, now a feeling of life or death, but still, that same feeling with new intensity that I have keep going.  I just hate waking up in the morning wondering what I'm going to do for 14 hours until I can go back to bed and forget the world for a while.  I dread the new day and what pain it might bring.  I have always sort of hated New Years Eve because alot of people get excited for what a new year might hold, but since my sister was killed, I've thought of it as "what if this is the year your sister dies, or what if this is the year your husband leaves you, or what if this is the year it REALLY gets bad."  I hate when people say, "It can't get any worse, because it can ALWAYS get worse."

So, I know it's nice and depressing to read my words on a Monday morning.  I know that it's not the ridiculous antics people usually come here to hear about.  There are still alot of funny things that happen in my day, but I see them through a painful fog right now.  Last week, I was almost cheerful, I said to a friend, "This is the first time in a long time I haven't dreaded the new day, I think I'm coming through the other side."  WHAM! Thanksgiving and reality and fear and I didn't see it coming. I truly got clotheslined by it and am sort of experiencing a shocked feeling of once again trying to get up off the floor.  God, how many times must I pick myself up?  Lord, how many times must I hit a low, think it's the bottom, only to realize there's further to fall?  How much must you allow me to hurt before it's done? I look around and see that You have gently put people and words in my path to encourage me.  You have been with me, I know You haven't left my side, and I have physically felt that God Himself has suffered with me all this time.  I'm just calling out today that my praying friends would intervene for me, I need something encouraging, something hopeful, something new....

"The Lord hears his people when they call to Him, He rescues them from all their troubles.  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, He rescues those whose spirits are crushed." 

Anyone know what verse this is?  I found the quote, but couldn't find the Scripture location.

Time, Obedience, and Trust

Today's sermon was about prosperity.  That God's intention is for us to prosper and ENJOY the gifts He has given us.  It's sort of a foreign concept to me because my religious upbringing left me believing that God loved me, but that He was ready to thump me on the head anytime I did wrong, which in my life was alot because I'm a rebel at heart, natural challenger of authority, tell me I can't and I will die trying, etc.  It took 41 years, but I think God has finally thumped it out of me!  I'm broken of spirit.  This week, Thanksgiving, put me over the edge.  I think I came undone.  It was lonely.  I missed my kiddos, who were with their dad and my in-laws, who are my family too.  I met them all for the first time 18 Thanksgiving's ago.  It was so hard.  The hardest week of my life.  In the process of my grief, I also carelessly hurt a friend.  So, here I sat today, in church, listening to how God wants to give me these great things and how He has planned things for my life that are beyond my imagination right now and I just want it to be true SO badly.  I want to skip through all this difficulty, all this first holiday as a broken family.  I want someone to wake me up when the pain is over and tell me I can start to look for more than one day at a time now.  I want to take a breath without it hurting.  I want to look forward to the day, and the night, and tomorrow without dread.  I want the loneliness to end and the healing to begin.  I am so tired of hurting and so tired of fighting for rest.  I'm just tired.  Scared and tired... mostly I'm just tired.

Here we go... you better sit down for this one!

This blog has been everything from a little scrap book of my kids, to rambling thoughts on whatever crossed my feeble brain, to trials and tribulations of trying to live a life a world away from my beloved friends.  But this one is most likely going to be a shocker for many of you, so if you're here because you followed or know me, you better have a seat.

I've had a very big secret in my life for quite a while.  I shared it with only one other soul in the world for 14 months.  Then I slowly began to share, only on an as needed basis, in June of this year.  Now, most people who know me personally, in real life, know the story, in one form or the other.  But the silence here, in blog world, has been a hard one for me.  See, you are my friends too.  You have been such an enormous source of support for me through many hard times in my life.  So I am ending my silence because I need you all now.

My husband and I separated the day after we returned from Hawaii.  That was June 4, 2011.  It had been a very long time coming.  Probably 20 months or so, to be exact.  14 months of that time, I was aware that it was possible, but I held on with all I had, hoping that I could affect the outcome of my life.  Once again, I am learning that I have very little control over anything.  A lesson God continually teaches me... "Let go and let God!"  But June 4 is a day that I will never forget as long as I live, to date the hardest day I've lived through.  That's saying alot because I've buried very beloved grandparents, a sister, and faced infertility.  But this topped all my experiences in the pain department.

The particulars of why and what are really not important anymore.  I thought they were when he first left.  I thought people needed to know the details, or at least a broad reason why.  I thought people would think less of me, like I was somehow a failure, if I didn't share some of how this came to be our reality.  But what I have learned is that people DON'T need to know.  That only really makes things worse.  It only brings opinions and suggestions and none of that is really all that helpful.

I've learned SO much about being supportive during this process.  God has groomed me into something different through all this pain.  I realize I've made so many mistakes in the past, while thinking I was being supportive.

At this point, I've stopped living in blinding pain.  The kind of pain where you are on auto-drive, no thought or reason goes into your actions, you're completely in survival mode.  You know the kind, it's the one where you live in the fight or flight portion of your brain, every single even triggers a response that is not necessarily a strategic or well-executed one.  I'm now finally, I believe, moving into real acceptance.  How do I know this?  I think I am able to handle things more rationally, I don't feel like I am grasping and grabbing at anything and everything that might stop the pain.

If you know me in real life, and you've offered support or help, you cannot imagine the gratitude I feel toward you for the late night calls, the offers to help with the kids, the little drop-in visits, the flowers, the meals, and everything else people have done for me.  It's hard for me to accept help sometimes, I want to believe, and I especially want everyone else to believe, that I have it all together and I can handle it.  But every kind gesture was felt and appreciated, even though I was usually too proud to ask for help.  Thank you for guessing at what might be helpful and just doing something.  I've learned, through this experience, not to ask people what you can do for them.  Just do SOMETHING!

My main focus right now is to protect my children and make sure they have as little fall-out from all this as possible.  Everyone knows there is no way to completely shield them from the affects, but Brian and I are both committed to making sure they don't carry the burden of this very difficult, very adult situation.  That is the main reason I regret ever giving details to anyone, I would never want my kids to hear second-hand all the reasons behind this life we are living.  They are my focus.  They are my future for now, and they are absolutely without a doubt what has kept me from staying in bed every day.  I can see that I would have spiraled dangerously out of control if I had been given that luxury.  I have said many times that my children saved me, but now I know in a new and completely different way that they continue to save me.  I got out of bed every morning for them.  I put a smile on my face and didn't cry in front of them.  I made sure there was food in the house for them, not because I cared at all about eating or smiling or even living.  Because of them, and by the grace of God, I am back among the living now. The pain is there, but it is manageable.  I can see through the fog, though the fog still exists.  I have been given the gift of clarity.  Clarity about some things I wish were still unclear.  I know now, who my friends are, who can be trusted, who can be depended upon, and who will be there when the pieces fall and break.  It's good to know.  Though that, too can be painful in it's own way.

So, my virtual friends, I have now come completely out of the closet.  This is out there for the world to see.  You have graciously asked me to end my blog silence, but I am sure this is not the way you thought I would end it.  Your prayers for peace and continued clarity are very much appreciated.  The road is narrow and fraught with false prophets, discernment is difficult and critical.

All my love to all of you for your precious presence in my life.

Ending Radio Silence

Whew!  (That was a giant exhale for those of you who didn't hear it.)

We have been home for over a month now... I can NOT believe it.  I feel like I've been in a blender.  We landed on June 3 to a very sweet welcome party at the airport, lots of friends and neighbors stopping in to say hello and bring food, etc., and the boys have burned up the sidewalks and bike tires visiting long missed friends ever since.  It seems hard to believe that we are back and school starts in less than a month and our tropical adventure is behind us.

I'm absolutely opposed to going anywhere for the rest of my life that does not involve my friends.  However, as I knew would happen, I miss so many things about Hawaii.  My friend Carla asked me if I felt like I totally fit here in now, and I had to answer no.  I now have a longing for something that I didn't even know existed a year ago.  This time last year I was packing for a month at the beach.  And here I sit, how could I have imagined how much my life was about to be radically changed.

One thing that I miss the most about Hawaii is the voice of the Holy Spirit.  I can't explain it, but the voice of the Spirit is almost impossible to hear here because there is so much "chatter" in my head about general life stuff.  Even though I have intentionally kept our world small, I have not signed the boys up for even one organized sport, we haven't had a schedule or an obligation other than the absolute necessities, but there is this clamor to "do" here.  Paint rooms in your house, buy new clothes, fix your hair, do do do do do do do do do do do......

While I was in Hono, HI, a friend of mine came to visit.  She was staying on the North Shore with some folks who had moved to Tennessee from Hawaii and then moved back to Hawaii.  Katie said that this woman told her husband, "I have to go back to the island.  I have to be somewhere where they don't obsess about interior decor.  And I cannot fix my hair and make-up one more day or I am going to go insane."  She's right!  When Katie told me that, I sort of laughed thinking it must have been the folks that this lady hung around.  But it wasn't.  Even in my very real, loving, laid-back circle, there's this urge to have one of the houses from the West Elm catalog (all 2500 square feet of it! :)  T-shirts and shorts that I wore in Hawaii and felt perfectly adorable in now look really shabby.  I was actually looking at my shorts in the mirror yesterday thinking, "Have these shorts always looked this bad or do they just look like this here in Tennessee?"

I loved living where your swimsuit counted as underwear because you needed to be ready for the water at any moment.

I promise I will try to stop whining about where I live.  I realize that the whole time I was so far away I was pining for all the stuff that fills my life now.  And I spent a great deal of time and energy looking forward to coming home.  Brian is in Hawaii this week working though and it's absolutely killing me to Skype with him and see "my" pool, my yard with the palm trees, and my "fancy porch" in the background.  Ugh!  Why can't I just talk my friends and family into moving with me and then I can "have it all"! :)

Goodbyes

I couldn't really say any of this until today.  I still don't really WANT to say it... that we are leaving Hawaii. The last post I did was about going home and all the wonderful things about home.  And I need to read that today to be reminded of why I am leaving this paradise on earth.  Because I thought I would make a long list of the things I like about Hawaii, but it's too painful right now, I think.  And some of it is escapes words anyway, it's just a feeling... an experience.

I spent a while last night, sitting outside in a chair, in Brian's lap, just looking at the trade winds in the palm trees, listening to the sounds of geckos chirping, which has become the soundtrack of our daily living.  It's hard... leaving.  And it's hard to explain to the people at home who are anxious (hopefully) for your return, but it's scary.  We've been here in this sanctuary for a while now.  We've grown accustomed to it's incubation, it's warmth, it's isolation, and it's lack of guilt and obligation.  I feel pressed upon, a bit, now by the things that call me back.  It's scary, this re-entry.  It's scary to know (or at least to naively believe) that I have changed and wonder how I will fit into the space I occupied before.

And we are leaving friendships behind here too.  Friendships that I hope were nurtured long enough to have strong roots.  Certainly friendships that we will never forget and that will forever be a part of this blessed year.  I remember the fear I felt when I got off the plane in Nashville after coming here last year to look for a house.  How I wished I was getting off for good rather than just embarking.  How could I have been so ridiculously rooted to the sameness?  God has really been so kind in putting me here, He was so careful in the choice of location, He was so deliberate in the friends he put in our space, He was so gentle in His extraction!  I am blessed.

I have a long day ahead.  I woke up early with a cup of coffee on our lanai (the "fancy porch" as Amy called it) and watched the sun come up one last time over our palms and pool.  And I read a poem by John O'Donahue that fits quite nicely into my space today.  So I'll just let these words speak for me as I travel.... thanks, truly, for sticking it out with me this year.  You were all familiarity in the unknown!

FOR THE TRAVELER

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
INto a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
will pretend nothing changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
to the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye
watching you abroad;
and how what meets you
touches that part of the heart
that lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
to the timbre in some voice,
Opening a conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough Inward,
on some unsaid dark,
to create a crystal of insight

You could not have known
you needed
to illuminate
your way.

When you travel,
a new silence goes with you,
and if you listen,
you will hear what your hear would love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing;
Make sure, before you go,
to take time to bless your going forth,
to free your heart of ballast
so that the compass of your soul
might direct you toward the territories of spirit
where you will discover more of your hidden life,
and the urgencies that deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an
awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your
inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely,
arrive refreshed,
and live your time away to its fullest;
return home more enriched,
and free
to balance the gift of days which call you.

From a book of blessings: To Bless the Space Between Us

Aloha!

Home!

Just the word alone evokes a VERY strong emotion in me.  It's a "trigger" of mine.

We are counting down the days to our return to Tennessee.  We wrote the names of things we are looking forward to on little strips of construction paper and every day we've torn one off.  We have 15 links hanging on that chain.  15 names of things that are precious to us and awaiting our return.  So, in the interest of looking forward, I was thinking of all the things I love about HOME!


1)  Home is where I have great friends who love me all around.  These are the amazing ladies that I call on when I need to laugh, run out without the kids for a minute, complain about something, cry about something, or just need some company for a glass of wine or an episode of Modern Family. And it's not just once in a while, we live life together.

2) Home is driving without GPS and making appointments without having to call someone for a recommendation.

3) Home is never knowing what weather will await me for the day!

4) Home is where my dog is!  (Apparently, my dog has gained nearly 25 pounds while vacationing at the farm.  He was already 10 pounds overweight.  I wonder what Dr. Jim will have to say about that one!  Can you say, "never free feed a retriever?")

5) Home means the 12 hour commute with the hula kitty will be a thing of the past (and I can stop worrying about it.)

6) Home is where my kids can run out the front door and have a choice of about 10 kids to play with any time of day.  

7) Home is where I can smother my nieces with kisses and hear them cackle with laughter.  And I can see my nephew and hear him talking (which he wasn't doing before I left.)

8) Home is where I know and am known.  

9) Home is where there are friends whose homes I walk into and instantly relax, because I know there is a place where I don't stand alone.

10) Home is where I don't have to calculate time difference before I pick up the phone.

11) Home is where I love and am loved.  

12) Home is where my family is!

13) Home is where my children are loved and nurtured by an entire community of people who share similar values and have a vested interest in making sure everyone is okay.

14) Home is where people know about the orphan crisis and they "get" my passion about it.

15) Home is where I can be late for something and someone calls me because they know me well enough to know that I've most likely forgotten about it altogether.  (Kaye, you're back on duty!)

16) Home is where I want to spend a long time going around town to visit every single person I think of when I think of home.

17) Home is where I can show up unannounced on the doorsteps of a friend, pretty much any time of day, no need to wait for an invitation, and be welcomed in without alot of fanfare.

18) Home is where kids ride a bus to school.

19) Home is where everything around me is mine and not someone else's.  And the things that surround me are largely things that have been in my family for years and years.  Furniture and photos and everything else has meaning, a story, a sentiment, not just a function.

20) Home is where I can ship the kids off to the grands so my husband and I can get a weekend together.

21) Home is where I feel safe and embraced.

22) Home is where my heart is!

Having said all this, there are always going to be things I miss about our time in Hawaii.  I had alot of trepidation about our return, knowing that I have changed and hoping that I will feel at home there in my different skin.  I will miss a million things about Hawaii and maybe I'll list those too so I won't forget when life returns to normal.  I've made some dear friends here too, who I know will be missed and not soon seen again.  But the closer I get to that return, the more anxious I become.  With each passing day, I'm more aware of the things my heart yearns for that I have lived without for long enough.  As we close in on our return, I am becoming anxious and excited about getting home.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by.  And that has made all the difference."  Robert Frost

Easter Weekend

We spent Easter Weekend in Kauai.  It is SO gorgeous!  I won't waste your time with words except to say that words won't suffice!  These are straight out of my camera so some of the colors may be off a bit.

Our kids could have literally spent the entire weekend at the pool.  They loved this large lagoon.

We took a boat ride on the Na Pali Coast.  Amazing!

Liam

Meg

Jack

Connor

The dolphins ran along in front of the boat... so amazing!

Na Pali Coast

Me and Brian

Amy

Easter morning we stopped at a little Episcopal church.  The minister told a story about hiking in East Tennessee.  :)  They were so sweet.  They gave us all these crocheted leis.  It was a sweet morning.

This photo was taken at the lighthouse

A bird sanctuary near the lighthouse... on the East side

Can you spot the monk seal hauled out to get some sun?

Here he is....

Week 15: Shoot and Edit Challenge: Easter

Nothing says Easter like a little bunny in the kitchen!

Cookie, anyone?

I'm participating in this weekly challenge with Jill Samter and Ashley Sisk.  in an effort to hone my skills a bit more in the photography arena.  I haven't taken many portraits since I've been out here in Hawaii (lots more landscape) and I feel a bit rusty.  I'm finding it pretty inspiring for getting me back in the saddle.  Hope over there if you'd like to participate, it's been alot of fun and it's pretty simple steps to improving your photos.  

Shoot And Edit Assignment: Week 14

So, I am late to the game of this shoot and edit assignment stuff, but I decided to try to hone my photo editing skills by participating in this blog carnival over at




Check it out.

Here is my original photo. The theme was "Faith." This was a bit of a stretch for that category, but it's the closest I had. Also, I have been trying to work my way back through the lessons, so I am not nearly where I should be on this editing thing, but I'm only three weeks into the lessons, so bare with me. (Or is it bear with me?)

Original shot:

I edited the photo in Picnik.  I love Picnik, though it does have it's limitations.  I tried to follow Ashley's editing suggestions as well as I could without Photoshop.  First I used the Neutral Picker to brighten the photo up a bit based on the white in the door frame.  Then I used the crop and straighten tool to change the orientation just a tad (because that was this weeks lesson.)  And then I bumped up the vibrance and added the words at the bottom.  All in all, it was very simple but I think it made a huge difference in the photo.  What do you think?

I think typically I would be supposed to add the original camera settings, etc. etc., but I don't know how to do that, so you'll just have to take my very unscientific word for it! :)  

Perspective

I haven't shared the entire story of our ups and downs here.  Pretty much daily we have gone back and forth between being in love with this island and being painfully aware of what we were missing at home.  Our life here is so special.  It's something that I wish everyone could experience once with their family, a chance to be set aside and rest.  A time to explore new places and spaces together, to develop new mutual interests.  A time to create memories that are unique only to your own family.  A chance to depend on one another in a way that you can't when you are surrounded by a network of people who love you.

All these things and so much more have made this time here an absolutely incredible experience.  So, although we know in our hearts that it's the right thing to go home this summer, there is still some bitter to the sweet.  I think we've all changed alot and it will be interesting to see how we weather the confines of security and comfort.  It will be a new way of experiencing the old and I'm so looking forward to it.

But to ease the sting a little bit of constantly talking about "one last time before we go" and "I'll sure miss....", I cut up a bunch of paper and made a countdown chain.  70 rings to count the days until we get home.  I gave each person in the family ten blank strips of paper and had them list the things they most miss or are most excited to re-experience when we get HOME!  And all of a sudden, the days left seem like a countdown to something wonderful rather than an hourglass running out of time.

 I will try to share a few things along the way that we pull off the chain (the one you can see says "Downtown Franklin". ) But I can tell you that the first thing on every single persons list was our dog, Vince.  I will tell you this much, I will NEVER leave home again without our dog.

The other big excitement of the day was making Easter cookies with Meg.  I don't have any photos of the cookies because they were eaten too quickly, but I do have a shot of the little bunny that helped decorate the cookies!  

"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."  Phillipians 3:13-14

A quick photo update...

We had lots of visitors in March.  

Some had four legs...

But lots of them had 2!

And now they are all gone!

And now he has lost two front teeth, combine that with a sizable gap that God gave him at birth and there are practically no teeth in the front of the boys head.

And we discovered high heels.

And had more fun in the pool, everything old seems new again.

Remembered to see the sunsets and be thankful for them.

We even made a special event of the sunset last night.  Even though the sky wasn't really right for the sunset viewing, we enjoyed Waikiki beach.

I think she belongs on the beach!  

Doesn't she look at home here?

I love to see them playing together... and know that they will remember these days.

All smiles for her brothers... little stinker!

The big scratch between his eyes is thanks to brotherly love and rough play... he threw the book at him, literally. 

Sorry, she is just more willing to pose than the rest of them. :)

Not sure what happened with either of their hair here.

Jack never came out of the water long enough to get a photo.

And I only had my portrait lens so I couldn't really get a close up.

Diamond Head... my favorite landmark in Hono.

Self-portraits are always the best.

Waikiki

What, it's time to go already?

The End!