Dear 20-Year-Old-Chad,

You don't know me.  But you will in a couple of years.  Right now, you are in Costa Rica for the first time, living with a family you barely know, speaking a language you hardly speak, feeling quite out of your element. But you won't feel that way for long.  You just made a decision that will affect my life profoundly.  Your Costa Rican host family just let you know that Fanny, the mom, is very sick and will be in the hospital for a while.  You were offered the opportunity to find a new family to live with for a while, but you declined.  You decided to stay and help.  You don't know it, but you just changed my life drastically.

That high school boy who lives in the house with you?  Alejandro?  Yeah, him.  You and he will become quite good friends.  Best, in fact.  He has some really rough months ahead of him.  You're going to be a great friend to him and I thank you for that.  Since you decided to stay and help, you guys are going to become such good friends that at the end of the year, after you go home, you're going to come back to visit, just to invite him to live with your family. And he will.  For about 8 months.

He'll fall in love with the United States and decide he's going to marry a gringa so he can live there.  Ok, he'll really hope that happens.  And it will, in fact.  But let me back up.

That girl you left back home?  Sarah?  You're going to marry her.  She's the one for you.  Neither you nor her have really figured that out yet, but you will, so be nice to her.  In a year or two, you and she will visit Alejandro in Costa Rica again, and that's when I come in the picture.  You sort of know it when you meet me, because when God chose me to be the gringa that walked in front of his house every morning on the way to go to school for a year, He knew what He was doing.  Yep.  I'm the one.  You and Sarah and Alejandro and I will walk the streets of Costa Rica, barely knowing each other, having no clue of the future that lies ahead.

You see, when you decide to marry Sarah, you also decide that Alejandro should be in your wedding.  In fact, you'll pay part of his way to Kansas so he could stand next to you in a suit.  Thank you for that too.  Because he won't use the ticket home.  He'll stay.  We'll get married just about six months after you!  And you'll be there.  We'll start our lives together here in the United States.

About 10 years from now, you won't believe it, but our families are going to get together at our house.  You're going to read our children a story.

I know right now you're single and carefree and all about fun, but see all those kids there?  All but one of them are yours!  Ha!  And guess what?  It's awesome!!

Your wife, Sarah, and I are going to talk late into the evening as your two year old and your littlest one sleep on her lap.

We'll take walks together again, except instead of walking the streets of Costa Rica, we'll walk the streets of our neighborhood.

We'll take all those kiddos to the park and our two-year-olds will slide together.

We'll try to take a picture of all five kids smiling at once, but it will be a dismal failure.  

Instead, we'll get them all frowning at once.  That's funnier anyway!

My son will adore yours, by the way.

We'll take pictures of your family.

and you'll take pictures of ours.

And then?

Just to bring it full circle?

We'll eat gallo pinto around our table for lunch.

So, 20-year-old-Chad?  Thank you.  Thank you for deciding to stick around and help, instead of being placed with another family without medical issues.  You'll never know how much I appreciate that one decision.

Love,

32-year-old-

Lunch Break

When Alejandro and I used to dream 

of being self-employed work-from-home parents together, 

we used to imagine 

having days in which we'd stop for lunch, 

walk outside, 

sit down with our kids, 

and blow bubbles.

Funny how God answers prayers in unexpected ways.

A Little Bit O' Summer {Amateur} Photography

Ok, two more back-linked posts and then I'll be back to my regular posts (aka on my main page so you don't have to click).  Wanna see pictures of Danny's first fireworks experience?

Just click here.

Oh, and I never did post the pictures of the great Chinchilla Porras roofing project.  

You can see them right here.  

Right after we went camping, we went off-roading in our Jeep!  I've posted these as links so they're still in chronological order on my blog.  Here are the photos:  

Metberry Gulch, Colorado

__________________

posted the other day:  

I may have overdone it this time.  Two things I love:  camping and photographing.  Put them together - photographing us camping.  And may have overdone it with the number of pictures I took.  But enjoy!

Our Fourth of July Weekend

And the winner is...

Anybody wanna' know who won 4 free training sessions with personal trainer Kristi Fox and a Mary Kay basic skin care set from me?

Congratulations, Jen S.!  You were my 9th entree!! Email me so I can put you in contact with Kristi and send you your prize.  I'm SO excited for you and the beginning of your journey to a healthier you!  :-D  

Thanks everybody for entering!! ...and because I can't stand to not have everyone win...  everyone else who entered gets a Mary Kay basic skin care set at half off!  Just email me and I'll send it your way!  :-D

Quite Possibly Just Perfect

So What On Earth Do you DO at a Mary Kay Seminar??

Since returning last week from four days in Dallas  I've been asked more than once what exactly we do for four days at our annual Mary Kay Seminar.

"Is it training on make up and skin care?"

Well, there's that.

And so much more.  

It's sort of hard to explain, exactly.  It is NOTHING like your typical business seminar.  I went to one once a few years ago after two Mary Kay Seminars.  Yeah.  It was BORING.

So what might you see at a Mary Kay Seminar?  Let's start with 8,000 Mary Kay representatives in the arena of the Dallas Convention Center.

And every single one of them is in a skirt and heels.  'Cuz that's how we rock it, people.  

Team leaders are in red.  Directors are in purple and black.  National Sales Directors sparkle.  

Not their suits.  Them.  Oh, and they do the can-can on stage.  It's a tradition.  

You'll see diamonds on display and diamonds on fingers.  There are many to be earned.  

You'll hear training, of course.  And it's riveting.  I'm not kidding!  

Entertaining, funny, inspiring...  I could listen all day!  And I did.  

Of course, you'll see pink Cadillacs.  There might even be one in the middle of the dining room.

You'll see women putting God first, their families second, and their career third.  

You'll see them bow their heads to pray and thank God for their food.

Awards Night is a thing in and of itself.  

It is a night of glamour and glitz and celebration!

Behind me and my girlfriends?  A stretch limo that took us from our hotel to the arena.

You may see matching diamond rings

and directors who've led their teams to do a million in production in a year

and really happy husbands.  

You'll see old girlfriends

and you'll make new ones.

A live band might entertain you as you wait for the awards ceremony to start.

And the show... oh the show!  Awards Night is complete with the most incredible entertainment.  

Those are firework pyrotechnics inside the arena!

What do we do at a Mary Kay Seminar?  

We par-tay.

Unedited

I am alive.  I really am.

I just haven't figured out exactly how to make everything fit back into my life.  I have stepped up my Mary Kay business after four incredibly empowering days in Dallas in which God helped me see anew the potential to impact women and refreshed my awareness of His call on my life to leadership within this business.  I also have taken on a new tutoring student - a sweet eight year old young lady who is gonna learn to love reading like you'd never believe.  She just doesn't know it yet.  She and I hit it right off today, and I'm really excited for the weeks and months ahead to work with her.  I also finally got the code installed just right on my side bar for the new BlogHer ad.  And how perfect that Mary Kay is running an ad on BlogHer right now!?  I absolutely didn't know that until just tonight.  Ha!  Love it!

I have loads of posts floating around in my brain, particularly one about potty-training Danny - which we are doing, but I fear it might bore you.  It's seriously been such a breeze.  (Thank you, Jesus!) The only minor hang-up we had was realizing halfway through day 2 of his training (read day 2 of him running around naked from the waist down) that undies in his size don't exist.  Yup.  Kiddo weighs 22 pounds and needs a cloth diaper to help his 12-18 months pants and shorts to keep from falling off of his bum.  (He's 25 months so he's training on the early side anyway.) So we're hoping that 12-18 month training pants can be shrunk and/or sewn to fit properly.  I guess we'll see when the box arrives at our house in a few days.

Well, with that, I'm going to have to abruptly cut this off and call it a night.  You see, I vowed that I would climb into bed before midnight for the first time in five days and I've already missed that mark, so off to dream-land I go.

I'll come back soon (I'll try - I'll really really try) with more pictures from the Mary Kay seminar (including my favorite black gown) and some camping pictures and (of course) some potty training pictures and updates.

Oh wait, one last thing...

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER MY GIVEAWAY!  

You've got until midnight Saturday night, but why wait?!  Help me spread the word, please!!

Sleep tight, ya'll!