God's Beauty....

Well I have now been in the Land of Smiles (aka Thailand) for almost a week. I feel as though we have done so much and seen so much already. We got to our Hostel late on the 4th of July,where we spent the night in a cute little hostel. On Saturday we spent the day exploring the Bangkok (the HUGE outdoor market!) and then we boarded a train and headed south to the BEACH! The trip was LONG but it was well worth it! We spent 12 hours on a train (trying to sleep most of the time) and then we got on a bus for about another couple of hours then on a boat for the 4 hours trip to the island we were staying on! The beach was beyond words, I felt as though God was giving me a glimpse into Heaven. The next two days were spent laying out on the beach and at the pool. We ate Pad Thai and enjoyed cocktails on the beach. What more could a girl want?!?! It rained the last day we were there but we just went to a little bungalow and read our books as the storm was brewing all around us. It was a great little get-away!

Whenever I spend time in places as beautiful as this I become overhelmed by the beauty of the Lord. I am reminded that the Lord is so big and mighty and He is BEAUTIFUL! I pray that I will remember this truth as I go back to Fort Worth!

Tonight we are getting on a plane and flying to Chiang Mai! My heart is SO excited to be back at the orphanage. Don't get me wrong this girl LOVES the beach, but I have been longing to get to the orphanage and seeing the sweet faces of the children I feel in love with back in March! I pray that the Lord would use these next few weeks to teach me more about His beauty and His love.

I will be able to put pictures up shortly so be looking forward to that!

Thailand here we come...

In 24 hours I will be at the airport waiting for to leave for Thailand! I am so excited to be able to go back to this place I have come to love! I've been packed since last week (I bought a new pack and wanted to make sure everything would fit in it). We have all of our stuff ready to go and we will be off in less than 24 hours. Our flight leaves tomorrow (July 3rd) at 9:20 in the morning and we travel for about 26 hours and we get into Bangkok at 11:25 pm on Friday (it is exactly 12 hours later there). The plan is to spend the night at a hostel Friday night, spend the day in Bangkok on Saturday seeing the sights and then we are taking a train to Koh Phangan island. While there we will be staying in this little bungalow on the beach!

From there we will take the train back to Bangkok and spend another day there before flying to Chiang Mai. While in Chiang Mai we will be staying at Care Corner Orphanage (which is where I stayed back in March). I'm so very excited about this opperunity! I am hoping to be able to upload pictures and blog often so keep your eyes open!

Leaving on a...hot air balloon?!?!

Thailand here I come!! Things have changed once again and the good news is I am going to Thailand! Holly, Arianne and I will be flying out on next Thursday (July 3rd). I'm so excited that this has all worked out. We are taking a bit of a step of faith by going since all of our support is not in but my church is "floating" us the money until it comes in. To say the least I am super excited! This means that I have a lot to do in the next 8 days! Any how just wanted to update everyone...

On other news I went to a Hot Air Balloon Festival this past weekend. It was so much fun and made me really want to go on a Hot Air Balloon ride! Enjoy the pictures!

Summer plans...

The summer plans may have changed. It seems as though things for Thailand may not be working out as thought. Which if I have learned anything over the years it is that I am sure that this is all part of the Lord's plan. As sad as I am that we may not being going back to the Country that I fell in love with, I must trust this is the Lord's way of protecting us.

One of the things I have been thinking a lot about lately is my own story. As many of you know I have a very intresting story and the Lord has done a lot in my life. I have been through more in my 27 years than most people go through in their entire lives. As I said in my last blog I have been reading a lot of memoirs lately and I have decided to write my own. I've decided that I will now have plenty of free time this summer if we do not end up going to Thailand and I will use that time to write out my own story. I'm not a great writer but mostly this will be for my own healing. I've realized that there are many things in my life that I have not spoken to anyone, ever. Something that I continue to read in these books is how secrets are a disease and the only cure is honesty. So this is my chance to work on that cure...

I don't know if I will ever let anyone read this, I do think it would be amazing to maybe someday submit it to publishers but mostly this will be for me. I'm excited to begin this process! Maybe I'll put glimpses of it up on here...

life update...

Wow, it's been a long time since I have written on here. I thought I would give a little update about what has been going on for the past two months!

April was pretty uneventful, busy for me but uneventful. The last two weeks of school I had 3 research papers and presentations of those papers due, along with finals. One thing I really enjoy about my social work classes is that for the most part the professors say find a topic that interests you and write a paper about how it impacts social work. One of those papers has inspired a lot of reading and if I may say so myself was a pretty darn good paper. The paper was on self-injury amongst adolescents. Until my time at Heartlight I never understood how big of a problem this truly is. The statistics show that 1 in every 10 adolescent girl has self-injured at some point in their lives. And this is only from those that have reported it. This is a very serious topic that I have found myself burdened for. I have known a number of girls (and women) who have/do self-injure. Anyhow I know that this will be a topic that I continue to research. In the past month or so I have read a number of books about drug addiction, self-injury and basically just the pain of this world. As many of you know I have experienced a lot of pain in my short 27 years of life, and it is only by God's grace that I have not turned to drugs, alcohol or self-injury as a way to cope. Researching these things and hearing peoples stories has heightened my desire to work with these people. It has heightened my desire to walk alongside people who are hurting and struggling and help them get to a better spot. That is why I am back in school getting a degree that will allow me do just that.

Speaking of school, I got my tentative placement for my first internship. It is in the office of senator Kim Brimer. I will be working on his social policy committee. It's interesting because I know that this is not what I want to do in the long run but it will be such great experience to learn the legal and policy side of social work. It will allow me to network and learn how to change different social policies. Senator Brimer is passionate about many of the same things (suicide prevention, human trafficking etc...) that I am and feel as though it will be a great opportunity! I have an interview on Friday and should know within the next couple of weeks if that will be my permanent assignment.

Other notes...
Minnesota... I went back to Minnesota at the beginning of May for a wedding. It was a good trip and I got to spend time with many sweet people. It's always good to go back, it always confirms that I am exactly where I am suppose to be. It was so good to be able to be a part of Rachel and Adam's special day and to spend time catching up with so many friends who are scattered throughout the U.S.

Thug... He is getting so BIG! I will put pictures up here soon. He's doing so good, he's a puppy so he chews everything up but other than that we haven't had many problems. We went rollerblading the other day and he LOVED it.

Floating... Over memorial day weekend myself along with 6 of my friends piled into the Durango and headed south for the weekend. We decided to go camping and float down the guadalupe river and boy was it an adventure! We got there and the campground said if you can find a place to put your tent up you can stay. Well we did find a spot and boy was it CRAZY! Think college spring break x10! There was a dance party in the middle of the camp ground, people smoking and drinking everywhere, girls topless I mean it was CRAZY. Anyhow we floated the next day and then ended coming back that night due to the fact that we knew we would not get any sleep (The music the night before went till about 4:00am). So word to the wise, do not go floating the guadalupe river!

Well that's about all for now, I'm really going to try to be better about keeping up to date on here!

Meet Diger(?!?!)...

So today Holly and I were out shopping (Tomorrow night we are getting all dressed up and going to the Heartlight Gala! I'm sure I'll write more about that) and on our way home we started seeing signs for a garage sale in our neighborhood. I'm a sucker for a good garage sale so we thought we would stop and see what they had. It turns out that it was Arianne's sister-in-law Emily who was having the garage sale. We ended up stopping to chat with her. Long story short, someone had come by and left a puppy at their house. The lady rescues dogs on a regular basis and was looking for a home for this particular one. Emily thought about keeping the puppy herself but we're pretty sure it is part pit bull and she didn't think it was a wise dog choice with two small children at home. Once that decision was made we decided we would take him home with us. We have been thinking about getting a dog for some time now and this seemed like the perfect opperunity!

So we now have a new addition to our household, and he is SO stinkin' cute! Were not sure how old he is, but I think pretty young. He is white with beautiful brown markings. The markings are brindle tiger stripped,and he has the cutest gray eyes. He is so cute and I just love him already! We think he has been in a fight recently as he has some sore under his arms, but they seem to be healing. We are thinking Diger for a name but we haven't come to a final decision. I'm sure that I will have plenty of fun stories for you as he continues to grow

26...GONE!

Well it's official... I can longer say that I am 26 years old. I have hit the big 2-7! I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of weeks thinking about what April 5th 2008 would bring. I have learned that I need to prepare my mind and heart for my birthday well in advance, this year being no exception. You see for most people their birthdays are a joyous event spent with friends and family, rejoicing over the fact that they were born. As for me, that's not always been the case. In fact my birthday is the one day of the year I feel the most forgotten. I have ever since I was 11 years old. That was the last birthday that was really special to me, I remember it clearly. We went to Skatin' World and I won the toilet seat race. I thought it was the best day ever. My dad always tried to make that day special for me. My mom never did, in fact it was shocking if she even acknowledged it was my birthday. As I grew older I felt more and more forgotten. It has been five years now since I've received so much as a card from her. These past 4 have been the hardest for me. I am reminded each year that I do not have a mother who will call, I don't have a family to celebrate with, I am reminded of the words that were burned into my heart that day my mother told me what she thinks of on my birthday, and on that one day of the year I have to fight harder than ever to keep away the lies that I'm not worthy of love. I thought this year would be different... and it was, in some ways.

This year the forgotteness and hurt did not come from my mom. All day long I was fine, I think I have done a lot of healing in the past year or so. I know that the things my mom thinks about me are not truth and I have made the right decision to not be a part of her life. This was the first year I was ok with not having that family to celebrate with. But I was hurt and I did feel forgotten, just not by the people I would have expected. There are people in my life, people I interacted with throughout the day, who did not even wish me a happy birthday. There was a phone call from a friend whom I thought was calling to wish me a happy birthday, nope she was calling to see if I wanted to go to the birthday party of another friend. There were just some very hard times within the day. I was surrounded by bitter feelings and tension. I felt like the last place the people I was with wanted to be was where we were at. I felt like spending time with me was an obligation for most of those around me. Maybe I was falling into some lies but there was without a doubt some hurtful things throughout the day. At the very least there was not much love surrounding me. I am so very thankful for the love that was around me. For the phone calls and encouraging words. Thanks to those of you who told me they were glad I was born... I needed to hear those things so much!

I've spent the day thinking and wondering if things will ever be different for me. How different do I need things to be in order for me to be o.k.?!?! And honestly I don't know, and besides what does it even mean for me to be o.k!?!? I'm coming to the conclusion that maybe just maybe things will never look differently and I need to suck it up and learn to be o.k. with this, with what I've got. With the loneliness and being forgotten. I know that I am loved and cherished by my Savior... maybe that's all I get. I have a handful of people in my life who I know love me but some of these same people are the ones who hurt me, and I'm sure at times I have hurt them. I know that this all stems out of my own selfishness, I want to feel wanted, I want to be remembered, I want to be known, I want to be loved... But really, what right do I have to any of these things?!?! Just because it's my birthday does not mean that I deserve these things... Maybe I'll figure things out in the next 363 days and April 5th 2009 won't be such a hard day for me.