Summer FUN!

Emma-Claire and Josiah at Zilker Park

Olivia on her Birthday

"Yaya" is 1!!!

It always amazes me how fast the seasons pass! We had a great summer full of fun stuff! We had visits from Sam's parents and two of his siblings. Hannah, his lil' sis is a Freshman at Texas State, about 15 minutes from our house, this fall. So, Rich, Reta and Tom all visited us while seeing Hannah off to school. We all love when they get to come see a bit of our world! August 1st was Olivia's first birthday and our first day with our foster kiddos. About that time we also found out that we would be moving back to Houston sometime this fall.

The latter part of the summer was consumed with preparing for the foster kids and trying to adjust to life with 6 kids. We had a 10yr old girl, Emma 4, 4 year old boy, Josiah 2, 18month old boy and Olivia 12months. It was nearly 24hour a day chaos. Unfortunately, we were greatly misled as to the severity of the needs of these foster children. For various reasons each one was moved from our home and now I can look back and see that those children were put into our family by God for a season. We learned a lot having them here and have a whole new perspective of CPS. We have a new compassion for families with mentally ill children and empathy for the children sitting in CPS custody. Someday we will serve orphans in one capacity or another but now is not the time for our family to take on several very abused and needy children.