It's that time of year again...

...when for the 4th year in a row riding in our van is downright miserable due to the lack of air conditioning

...when I watch all the other neighbors zoom around the yard on their riding lawn mowers while I spend endless hours in the blazing hot sun and stifling humidity pushing a cheap little push mower up an incline and over the rough ground

...when we hear everybody else talking about their vacations to the beach, Disney World, and other neat places while our 6 year old son begs for the experience of staying in a hotel for "at least one night."

...when Vacation Bible School in the morning at our church gives me a chance to run errands and experience time without the kids for a couple of hours for 5 straight days, and I think about how much easier life must be for all the moms whose children go to Mother's Day Out each week at church (or any other part-time child care)

...when Vacation Bible School in the evening at the church around the corner from us gives my husband and I a couple of hours alone for a few days, and we spend the first day in a state of near shock at the concept of actually being ALONE together while imagining how fun life must be for those who can hire a sitter for their children

But then when I see this beautiful face...

...and I see this sweet smile...

...when I think of this precious boy...

...and this sweet little girl...

I have no regrets about how we have chosen to spend our money, and then...

...I am thankful for the old cars we have that are paid off, even if it means driving with no air conditioning, and even if the cars need some work. After all, it's pretty neat to think we are still using my very first vehicle, the truck I bought when I was still a teenager!

...I am thankful for the big yard we have that needs to be mowed and for having a little push-mower to mow it with, for the nice neighbor who fixed the mower so I'm not pushing around a half-broken mower anymore, and for the green grass and weeds that grow in the yard (because in Florida we had too much sand in our yard to grow anything).

...I am thankful that although we don't get to take neat vacations we live in a place that's so nice people come here from all over America for their vacations, and before that we spent many years living in another popular vacation destination along the Gulf Coast of Florida. I'm also thankful for the opportunity to travel around the world to bring home my precious children, and while we've never taken a luxurious vacation personally I think what we have seen has been far more life-changing and rewarding. We have been to an orphanage in Siberia where children begged us to find families for them. We have seen indescribable poverty and depression, homeless mothers begging for help, starving children begging for food, young kids selling themselves in a desperate attempt at survival. We have seen the slums of India, we watched naked children eating from the same piles of garbage on the street corners from which the cows were eating. We have seen hundreds of families living on the streets, and we knew those kids were the lucky ones because at least they had parents to love them as opposed to the thousands and millions of unwanted orphans. In short, we have seen what most people here in America never will, and thus we know just how incredibly blessed be are.

...I am indescribably thankful for the children that are always with me instead of going to a Mother's Day Out program, that go everywhere I go and beg for everything in the store and then whine when they don't get it, that make running the simplest of errands a burdensome task. I rejoice in the fact that I am never alone, because it doesn't mean I have my hands full, it just means I have my heart full!