They Call me "Snaggle Tooth!"

Maylin is one determined little girl.
Saturday night as we drove by a Toys R Us Maylin asked if she could go buy a treat. I said you need to save your money and then maybe we can go. She sighed because she knew that her piggy bank was empty. (She likes to play with her coins and usually looses them before she can spend them).

Then she brightly said, "I know! If I loose my tooth the tooth fairy will bring me some money!"

I replied, "Well yes but your tooth isn't quite ready to come out, but when it does I am sure the tooth fairy will bring you a couple of dollars."

Maylin: "Oh Thank you Mommy! Thank you!"

Me: ??? "thanks for what Sugar Bug?

Maylin: "You gave me a great idea! Can I break my tooth out?"

Me: "Ummm???.... That is going to hurt honey! Maybe you should wait a few more days."

Silence... followed by the loudest crunching and cracking noise a loose tooth could possibly make!
It kept going and going and going!

I finally had to turn the radio WAY UP so I couldn't hear it anymore. Ugh! It still gives me the willies to think about it!

After a 20 minute ride home she marched into the house. Went for the paper towels and then pulled with gusto to get that tooth out.

She has never been more pleased with herself.

For the record the tooth fairy had to go digging to find some cash. She managed to find 20 dimes! lol  It was either that or a $20 bill.  And well... inflation isn't quite that steep.

So she got her $2 worth of dimes. She let me know around 5:00 am that she now had money to go to the store with! ..."Great Honey! But the stores aren't open yet." I said.
Wouldn't you know that by 9:00am the dimes were LOST!  Ah the saga of a little girls life.

Dani

When I came home from India not only was a severely jet lagged, but I was severely overwhelmed! There are so many children. There is so much need. How does one person start to make a difference? We discussed the possibility of individual child sponsors but that possibility seemed daunting in a land where there are an estimated 20million orphans.

Dani and his Grandmother 2011

 We have begun to take positive steps in supporting orphanages in India. It is an exciting time to be involved in ROOM. Still the idea of child sponsorship hung in the back of my mind. Recently the Pastor who stepped up to be our ‘tour guide’ while in country sent a request to help a little boy we had met while there. This little boy, who we will call Dani, lived in a tiny one room ‘house’ with no furniture to speak of along with his grandmother who was in failing health.

 Their kitchen

 The back door and "back yard".

 All of their laundry.

Dani and his grandmother. She is sitting in her make shift wheel chair. 

 The Pastor told me the grandmother is not doing well and this child needs a sponsor now so that Dani can go and live at the children’s home.

At that moment a light bulb came on.  It was time to start our sponsorship program and this is where we were to begin.

I was reminded of a devotion I read years ago in “Chicken Soup for the Soul”. It was about a man walking on a beach. There were thousands of star fish washed up on the shore.  He bent down to throw one back in the water when someone asked him. “Look at all these star fish. What difference do you possibly expect to make?” The man’s simple reply as he tossed the starfish back in the water was,  “It made a difference to that one.” 

Yes there are 20 million of orphans in India. That number alone is enough to make anyone ask “What difference can we possibly expect to make?”

 My answer is. It will make a difference to Dani. Will you be Dani’s sponsor? For $30 a month you can help keep Dani off the streets and give him the chance to grow up in a place where Christ’s love is taught. 

Thank you Traer Joe's

 for helping this non-Asian mom feed my Asian kids familiar foods on a daily basis!

I couldn't do it with out you!

Synchronized Swimming

Impressive right? :)

He's My Creative Little Helper

He even loves to help me get groceries out of the car! I love this little guy so much! 

Happy 7th Anniversary

7 years ago today I married my best friend. We started our marriage with the adventure of a lifetime. 

standing in front of our casita. 

we snorkeled

We relaxed by the pool

 Adam got eaten by a sting ray.

 And taken over by Jack Eyes

 We scuba dived... or is it scuba dove?

 Either way it was a blast.

 We saw some Mayan ruins

 And climbed to the top.

 We took many boat rides to and from reefs and ruins.

 and we spent a lot of time relaxing!

 Held a live lobster caught by a local fisherman. YIKES

And got to spend a day on a deserted island snorkeling and eating Belize BBQ.

What a trip it was. But it was only the beginning. The best years were still to come and I pray there will be many more as wonderful as these first 7!
It still makes me chuckle that at this time we had a 9 month old and one more child to come two months later... We just didn't know it. How life changed 4 years later when Pierson and Maylin joined our adventure at ages 4 and 5.

Happy Anniversary Adam! Thank you for being my strength and support. I love you!

Video clips from the Beach..

This just proves it is not so easy to get pictures with 6 kids in the surf... :) We did this over and over. It finally ended with a meltdown. So the super cute "surf" photo we were going to capture... well it wasn't so cute. :)

Getting some sillies out with the silliest 5 year old boy I know!

Caleb and Pierson tried to surf... They rode so long they almost ended with the full moon!

There was a lot of net fishing going on. We would catch a couple little fish keep them in a bucket for a while then toss them back to swim home to their families.  Watch how the boys swung... it is no wonder the "blue nets" didn't last long. :)

Maylin LOVED snack time. Not because she was hungry... She just wanted to feed the seagulls!

Caleb discovered a new trick with his hair!  Oh how he cracks me up!

He did this by sticking his head in water and then quickly flipping it up.

A still picture just couldn't begin to capture this next clip. It was amazing. Everyday around 4:00 (when the tide got up to a certain point). MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Coquina clams as far as the eye could see in both directions would surface. I have seen these clams all of my life. I have also watched them bury themselves thousands of times. I have dug them up and felt them try to dig through my fingers more times then I could possibly count. But I have never ever seen them do this! (you have to watch all the way through).

Imagine this being a 10 ft wide stretch as far as the eye could see up and down the beach. It was as if the ground was coming alive! Over and over they would do this until the tide had completely covered that 10 feet where they were. I wasn't sure if it was TOTALLY AWESOME or the start to a TOTALLY BAD horror movie.... I'll go with the awesomeness of it even though it still weirds me out just a little!