Back on the Wagon

...The blogging wagon that is....

A two-month dry spell seemed like an excellent time to accept my friend Danielle's challenge to blog every day for a month.

So please bookmark this page, and come back daily to follow our journey.  Ill be sharing daily about our crazy life with 6 kids.  Raising them in a foreign country.  Our home.  Our ministry.  And our faith.

Being that keeping to a schedule isnt exactly my strong point, I have my own self-doubts, but life is blazing by and I want it documented.  So lets see if I can keep up a resolution of a month of blog posts....

Day 1 - Back On The Wagon
Day 2 - Red Light District
Day 3 - Fractures, Torn Ligaments and Broken Bones
Day 4 - Almost Double Digits
Day 5 - Our Yaya
Day 6 - She's her Mother's Daughter
Day 7 - Bridesmaids, Bachelorette Bash and Brunch
Day 7 - Wedding Dream Team


Its been a summer of houseguests and we have LOVED having our home and hearts full.
My friend Heather and her entourage of 4 kids and 1 nanny graced our home with their presence for 5 gloriously full, fun, exhausting, hilarious, meaning-full days.  There are few people in the world who "get" my life like this precious lady does.

She has moved to a different SE Asian country nearly every year while raising her 4 young children with a husband in ministry that requires him to travel frequently.  She does so with all the grace and poise that I long to possess!  What an encouraging time to sit by the pool and watch our kids enjoying eachother and just bask in her wisdom.
(...Ok, a more accurate description might be "lifeguarded 10 kids under the age or 11, all trying to drown each other, while attempting to think completed thoughts and get through uninterrupted sentences with each other...")
Nonetheless, it was a treasured time!!  Loved discussing 3rd culture kids, adoption and the eccentricities of our unique lives!
And our crazy crews got along splendidly!

A highlight of their trip (or lowlight depending on who you are and how well you tolerate slimy reptiles) was a trip to the "Snake Farm".  In actuality, its not a farm at all....its connected to the Thai Red Cross.  If you get there early enough, you can watch them milk the venom to create anti-venom for treating bites.

There is an outdoor amphitheater where "snake charmers" bring out scaly serpents to marvel at.
Tristan was in awe.
I was......cowering.

We hear often that Thailand has the largest variety of venomous snakes in........South East Asia?.......The World? ........Im not sure........(I space out at this point in the conversation and cant remember the context,) but the bottom line is that there are way more than I would like to have lurking around!  

Just last night, there was a snake found on the balcony of our 6th floor apartment....how exactly does a snake get up that high?  

Sleeping with eyes wide open!!

We ventured out in the stroke-inducing heat to a really fun park as well, where the kids chased monitor lizards and played on a playground and ate ice cream.

Nice to find places to get out of the hustle and bustle of the crazy city smog and traffic and give them room to roam!

Tristan and Nykolas were troopers.  With 8 girls in the house, there was an inordinate amount of pink dress-ups, slumber partying, nail polish and Fancy Nancy books floating around!

Our kids ask all the time when the Hammonds are coming back to visit!!

 Psalm 68:6 ~ "He sets the lonely in families"....

So grateful for the family he's given us so far from our home.
We love our Tokyo cousins!