I am thankful for: family, and for friends that are like family

Growing up, I always knew it was special that I had 8 grandparents rather than just four.  The fact that my parents divorced when I was an infant and then each remarried by the time I was 3 meant that I had not only four parents that loved me, but the number of aunts, uncles, cousins, and of course sisters and brothers multiplied as well.  As an adult, I've been blessed with another amazing stepmother and stepbrother, and all of the additional family that comes from this union as well.  All of this to say that I am surrounded by an incredible network of support that extends from here in Texas to Virginia to Boston to St. Louis to Michigan to Hawaii and beyond.  I'm thankful for friends that I've managed to keep from elementary school, to friends that have remained friends despite great distances, to friends that live nearby that would do anything for me and my family.  When Kai was injured, and we sat in the children's hospital waiting room at 3:30 in the morning wating for him to come out of surgery, I looked around me and saw my family and friends sitting with me.  When I posted on facebook about Kai's injury, over 50 of our friends sent notes wishing for his recovery, and countless others called, prayed, and visited.  We received the same outpouring of support when little Ruby was born in September.  So, thank you to all of you who love us and care about us.  We are truly blessed.

Summer!

The semester's finally over, and it's time to get the blog back on track.  I saw that our last post was at the end of March, so we've missed a whole month and a half worth of fun stuff to share.  I'll break it up into a few categories for the sake of organization.

The garden:  Our neighbor, a farmer, has been gracious enough to share some of his land with us this year and Pu Lue has been gardening several acres of traditional Burmese and Thai vegetables that the refugees can't buy in stores here in the US.  It's been a great learning experience for all of us.  We have pictures and more details on our refugee blog:  www.oneworldoutreach.blogspot.com

Our backyard garden, though weedier than we would like, has also produced better this year.  Here are the onions that we laid out to dry last night.

The animals:  We have had a bumper year of baby animals born on the farm.  I think we're finally finished with all of the births as of yesterday, and our total count is 9 lambs, 6 goats, a donkey, and a baby chick.



We just placed several ads on Craigslist to sell them--check them out at these links:

http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/grd/2396809452.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/grd/2396810302.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/grd/2396818655.html

Our family: If you haven't heard the big news yet, our family is growing (hence the need to downsize some of our furry friends.  We're expecting a baby in mid-October, and of course we are super excited.  We should be able to find out the gender next week!