The End of Winter?

It has been a looonnnngggg winter for us in more ways than one. Being I've been such a horrible blogger through it, I decided I'd try to catch you all up. So here we go!

December was a busy month and covered just about every emotion. Our 9 year old great niece lost her very heroic battle with cancer. Random turned 15 and Lily had another surgery.
A very special box from Japan arrived for the kids with the instructions that they had to wait until Christmas to open it! Inside was a gift for each of them from our exchange student Tianyu. Here, the girls model their gifts!

Anyone who lives in Minnesota can tell you that this has been the winter of snow. There was so much of it and it was so heavy that the Metrodome deflated. It looks quite sad whenever we drive by!

January brought a celebration of our great niece's life and a fundraiser for her family. As you can see, the kids had a wonderful time!

February brought Mango's 10th birthday. She is getting so tall, but has retained all of the joy, friendless, and silliness that she came to us with. (Ignore the laundry baskets in the background - they are clean!)

This is Cooper. He doesn't normally sit still. You know that saying about "it would be like herding cats"? Well, this dog does herd cats - especially when they manage to escape outside. The cats do not appreciate it at all, but the humans find in hysterical every single time!

March brought Lily's 13th birthday, so we are now a three teenager household. All prayers are appreciated.

We are hoping March will also bring the end of the snow. We are supposed to have temperatures in the 50's this week. Mango and Monkey spent some time outside this evening building what (we hope) are the last snowmen of the year.

As you know, March also brought news of the horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The morning we woke to the news, we talked with Tianyu on Facebook. She was home alone, riding out the frequent aftershocks, and waiting for her father to return. I wanted so badly to be able to give her a hug and make it better. (Actually what I wanted was to somehow magically just transport her back here.) By the next morning, we had heard from each of our recent students to know that they and their families are okay, but feeling very devastated. Please do not grow weary of praying for these people and their country. It is not just a far-away place, it is a place full of very real and very hurting people.

Too Funny to Not Share

Tonight was crazy hair night at AWANA. The kids all put several different colored gels in their hair, meaning they had to have showers once we got home. Monkey had a very quick bath and came out announcing that he was wearing his long underwear.

With as straight of a face as I could manage, I answered "You sure are, Monkey. You sure are."

I Pray in the Bathroom

So the secret is out....I pray when I'm in the bathroom. I'm not really sure how the habit got its start, but I know that it has to do with the fact that the bathroom is one of the few places in my life where I get to be alone. It's hard to quiet my mind and heart to listen to God in the middle of teaching Mango the finer points of long division, listening to Monkey read about Snuff the Snail, or helping Lily deal with her ever flucuating emotions. As goofy as it sounds, the bathroom is one of the few places where I am still and quiet long enough to really pray from the heart and to listen to what God wants to say to me. There are prayers for my husband, my children, the children and villages around the world that we sponsor, and for 2 young pregnant women in Haiti that I have the privilege of being a "prayer doula" for. There are prayers for a friend with cancer, for a niece who lost her daughter to cancer, and for a young pregnant mom at our church whose husband was recently deployed. There likely have been prayers spoken in that room for each of you at one time or another. I know it seems like a crazy place to pray, but I'm sure God simply overlooks my location and meets with me there.

The BAHA

Today, we had an unexpected blessing. Eleven days ago, Lily had the second of two surgeries for her BAHA sound processing system and for a last surgical attempt to get a prosthetic ear that works for her. We saw her surgeon this morning for her post-op check and he gave the go ahead for her to get the BAHA fitted today. We went to the audiologist's room and the BAHA was immediately put on Lily's head, allowing her to hear from both sides of her head. Up until now, the only time she's ever been able to do that is during a bone-conduction hearing test. Below, the audiologist is running a few hearing tests through the BAHA to adjust it for Lily's needs and preferences. She thinks things are kind of loud now, but the audiologist assured her that she would get used to it - that her brain needs to learn how to hear on that side. They said the hearing part of her brain will actually re-structure itself over the next few weeks to adjust to the change.
Afterwards, we were given instructions on how to use it and care for it at home. On the way home, we listened as she talked to her aunt and cousin on the phone; hearing her say "I can hear things I've never heard before!" brought tears to my eyes. We take so much for granted!

This is a picture of what the BAHA actually looks like on her head.

It's very, very tiny and will completely hide beneath her hair. The other two posts that you see will be used for a prosthetic ear.

Another cool thing is that the BAHA comes with a special "Share the experience" plastic post. We connect her BAHA to this post, plug our ears, hold the post to our head, and we can hear through it just like she can! It's meant to help the parents be able to trouble-shoot any problems, but it also gave her a chance to share her experience with her family.

Tianyu

These past 2 1/2 weeksweeks we have had an exchange student staying with us. Each summer a group of about 60 students comes from a Japanese University to take classes in ESL and American Culture. They all live in host families.

This year, we were lucky enough to have Tianyu stay with us! She is actually Chinese, but lives in Japan with her family. She can speak 3 languages!

We started e-mailing each other near the end of June and I immediately knew she was someone special. We have done a lot, shared a lot, and laughed A LOT these past weeks together, and the thought that she will soon need to return home is making all of us very sad. Please enjoy these few "snapshots" of her stay with us.

Waiting for the student to arrive:

Meeting a real horse for the very first time:
Playing croquet at my dad's 70th birthday party:
The Rainforest Cafe:

Meeting SpongeBob and Patrick (very important day!!)

Visiting a Native American museum:

She told us she wanted to do some work, so DH taught her how to mow the grass! Unfortunately, we all discovered she has an allergy to grass....

After months of preperation and traveling half way around the world to live with strangers for 3 weeks, she gets her program diploma at graduation last night.

Celebrating at Dairy Queen after the Graduation Ceremony.

We are all really, really going to miss her. She has fit into our family like she belongs here and it is going to be hard to say good-bye on Monday. We are trying hard to remember the saying by Dr. Suess, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

Tianyu- THANK YOU for coming! We've had such a good time with you and hope this is just the start of a lifelong friendship!