New child

For our anniversary this year, we found out we are in fact expecting another child! Due to arrive early August. Another girl!

Here's when Alana, Hanna and Seth first found out the news.

Surprised? Ha-ha! I have no growing belly, obviously. And of all people in the world, Troy does not like to keep something like that "secret" that long. (If I was pregnant, I'd be 6-7 months along by now.) He's ready to shout it from the hilltops the moment I tell him, whenever we have been expecting. And we're not adopting either.

We found out yesterday that we are getting a foreign exchange student to host for next school year. We received our first direct contact from her (via email) saying that yes, she wants to come to our family, because she "likes brothers and sisters." (How interesting that we found out on our anniversary.)

This is something totally new to us! We had never even thought of the idea, until someone called us on the phone asking us to consider it about a month ago. I hesitated at first, and thought of many reasons why not to do it. Just for fun, I asked the kids what they thought of the idea, and they all got super excited and all wanted to do it. That surprised me. Hanna offered to share her room, even though she never wants to share with any of her "real" sisters. Even Seth was okay with the idea of another big SISTER!

We looked at the list of students to select from. We really weren't interested in any of them. Except one. The youngest one. A girl from South Korea. She's exactly Alana's age (just a couple weeks older than Alana), and has many similar interests as Alana. (Singing, playing piano, dancing, etc.) Troy knows some Korean, since he served his mission there. He's not fluent, but knows enough to be functional. She happens to be Christian as well. And all of us have acquired a taste for some Korean food. When I was dating Troy, I couldn't stand it. That spicy kimchee smell would ooze from his pores for days after he ate it. Whew. But over time, we have all come to like it more.

So we applied. It seemed like if any year was a good one to do this, this is the year. We weren't sure if she was going to accept our application, and agree to come to our family. She's from big-city, high-rise apartment living. She has one sister and one brother. And part of agreeing to live with us, is going to church 3 hrs each Sunday. (I don't believe in forcing my own children to go to church all the time, so I felt super weird expecting a guest to. But, I'm not comfortable leaving her home alone in my house that long either, especially at first when we're just getting to know her.) She can't join the church--that's against the rules of the exchange program. But since that's part of our family life, the program told us it's completely acceptable for us to state up front what she can expect if she lives with us. (Attend church with us, help out with chores, we don't drink tea or coffee or smoke, we only have one internet hookup in our living room so no late nights on the internet, etc.) Coming to live with us will be a big change for her. I thought that she would decline the offer, because our family would seem too overwhelming. But then since we were already in the system, we'd probably get asked to host a different student from another country. I decided that I'd wait and see what the Lord had in mind.

But she did accept our offer! I'm still a little nervous, but have a feeling it will end up being something we are really glad we did. Lots of the BIG things in my life I'm super grateful for are things I never thought up on my own or ever dreamt about.

Speaking of our anniversary, it's our 16th one. We have now been married longer than we can remember being single. (We don't remember much before we were 3 or 4 yrs old, and married fairly young. 12 days shy of my 19th birthday, and Troy was just barely 22.) I guess we truly are "Growing old" together. Or growing up together. Something like that. In 16 years, we've had a lot of big experiences together as our family has grown. Life has a way of surprising you with all sorts of things. This new child is just one of those things! I wonder what other totally unexpected and unplanned things we'll experience over the next 16 yrs. (We'll probably have many grandchildren by then! I don't feel old enough to start thinking about grandchildren, but if Alana follows a similar timeline as I did, I could be a grandma in 5 more years! Yikes! That's unlikely, but it could happen. I still think kids who marry right after their first year of college are crazy, but I have to hold my tongue now, since I did just that.)