Time flies when you are having fun…….or so they say. One year ago we boarded the plane in Amsterdam and flew home. I foolishly imagined slipping back into our lives in Houston right where we left off. It doesn’t really work that way, we changed, friends changed, life changed.  This year may not have been all fun and games but definitely flew by and was over before we knew it. It took awhile for the whole family to feel settled back into life and just about the time everyone finally felt like life was normal we welcomed Emma into the family. What a wonderful blessing she has been.  If you know me then you know that I truly believe that a baby sister or brother is the perfect medicine for teenage angst. Babies make everyone step outside themselves long enough to see someone else’s needs and put those needs before their own. Toddlers make the best jokes timed perfectly to bring a frustrated teenager to tears of laughter. Like when 5 year old Holli yells ” #nofighting” when big sisters are bickering, everybody laughs no matter how grumpy they were before she chimed into the drama.
So while our year has been full of adjustments, drama, sadness it has also been full of love, joy, and happiness. We are ALL glad to be home now. And we are all so very grateful for the memories we made, the friendships we gained and the lessons we learned. Hopefully we will be blessed with the opportunity to try out living in another country again and if we do we will jump in feet first ready to embrace all the ups and downs that comes with living abroad.

I don’t know how great I will be at blogging but I am trying to get back into it. Unless of course I figure out by looking at my stats that nobody is actually reading and then I might as well write in my journal ????.