As I prepare to go back on duty tonight I figured I would share a little bit about my past week and my break. I honestly cannot complain this past week...I guess that means we had a great week! But usually with a great week comes a rough week...it is only natural so we shall see. I hit my 4 month mark here at Grace on April 22 and it was super crazy to believe I have been here for 4 months now! Henderson has definitely become apart of who I am and I can see myself here for quite awhile. We now have 5 girls in our cottage which is a normal number seeing as we can house up to 8 so I am sure there will be a few more girls coming our way before summer gets here. I guess the biggest thing I have had this past week was that one of my girls had to have her wisdom teeth taken out. So I took her to her surgery and brought her back and really just took care of her along with my fellow staff what with getting up at 2am some nights just to get her some pain medicine so that she could sleep. It is amazing how once I took her to her surgery how much I truly felt like a mom! I even had the soccer mom mini van when I took her so that really added to the effect! It is amazing how after only 4 months of working here your mother instinct takes over because these kids slowly become yours, as frustrating as they may be sometimes and you just wanna go crazy...but hey I guess that is parenthood right!? As my step mom would say "you are a parent...you just missed the cute phase of their life and where you find out what their personality is like!" Which is so true! But I am definitely trying to figure out the personalities of each of the girls...both the good parts and the bad. But they aren't necessarily "Bad" they just have a lot of hurt and somewhere deep down is that true person who needs to come out and show themselves. So week was overall good. I even went off duty with a ton of energy! I stayed late just to hangout with Becca and Hannah after the kids went to bed. Normally when I get off duty I can't wait to leave and just go to bed but not this week. I hope there are more moments like that. I have been going over there every night of my days off just to hang with them. Which is awesome because it gives me the opportunity to know them more and become better friends! I hope these friendships continue to blossom as they have been as I learn more about who they are and their personalities and they get to know me more, as I slowly open up more about who I am.

I spent most of my break hanging out with Caitlain, cooking and baking. I was just energized to bake and cook and so I made homemade chicken and rice soup for the first time and also some tapioca pudding, then I made my very first cinnamon rolls for class on Wednesday! It was all super successful! Then last night I had a slumber party at Green House with Caitlain because I didn't feel like waking up early with the Fire Marshall coming over to my off duty house so we had a sleep over! We scrap-booked  then I went and hung out with Becca and Hannah, came back and Caitlain and I just sat up talking and falling asleep on the couch and chair. Then this afternoon we went up to Aurora had coffee, and lunch at this cute coffee shop called Esspressions and simply just walked around town since it was super nice out! Then when I got back into town it was a perfect day for a jog, a slight breeze so I ended up lacing up and going for a jog around the pong and back. Now the rest of my day consists of relaxing before I go back on duty tonight at 9:30pm. I look forward to another great week and I appreciate your continuous prayers you all have been giving me and supporting me while I am down here on this grand adventure! I love and miss you all!

Ashley

 My first time cutting a turkey! Thanks dad for cutting a turkey 101 via phone!

 I may have broke the pool table...but hey I fixed it! Guess I don't know my own strength!?

 Spunky sat on Hannah's scrapbooking pages... haha

 But how can you get mad at this face!?

 Our Thankfulness journals!

 MMM Coffee and German Chocolate Cake from Chances R'!

 Storm coming! Looks super cool!

 It's official! I am a Nebraskan! My license tells me so!

Tribute To Some Wonderful Friends:

Tomorrow marks my 4 month period of working here at Grace Children's Home....wow 4 months already! It is truly hard to believe, there are some days that I think I haven't been here that long and other days where I feel that I have been here for years! My 4 month mark is the time where I meet with the program director and according to him when I first was accepted for the job he said "Your 4 month mark is the time you can flee from Grace if we scare you to death without worry!" I just chuckled at him when I started but after these past few months I have seen those crazy moments, and sometimes crazy kids that explain why I would want to flee. But honestly, as I think back on my 4 months here at Grace...I wouldn't trade them for anything. Sure things have been rough at times, but they help me grow. I am continually learning something new just as the kids I am working with are continue to grow themselves. We grow and learn together, and although it isn't easy it is worth it. You don't give up on the ones you love...families don't flee so why should I? I have made some pretty wonderful friends here these past 4 months as well. Three girls in particular I have grown super close with I feel. First there are my two wonderful co-staff/house parents I work with here at Bader: Becca and Hannah. We have three very different personalities which makes the relationships we have that much more interesting but also so great! Becca and I, although we have very different personalities I think we have grown a lot closer than we were when I first arrived. We can communicate (for the most part, I am still working on my communication skills to improve) and understand one another very well. I think it helps that you have two people who are different and grew up in two different lifestyles that can make a household work. We may not always agree, and she is definitely more outgoing than I am...which is something I truly admire about her, it is something I think that makes our friendship work. I am learning a lot about this job through Becca and it helps me understand more about not only her, but how she has been so successful with these girls here at Grace. I admire the way she doesn't care what others think about her, she is who she is and she is okay with it. She truly is a wonderful young woman and I cannot wait for our friendship to blossom into something wonderful!

Then there is my other co-staff Hannah. She is that crazy farmer girl that knows anything and everything about what it takes to live the country life. Whether it be plants, homemade remedies or anything you can possibly make from food to clothes and cleaning supplies. She is that girl that I can definitely learn a lot from! She has quickly become one of those friends I enjoy seeing everyday. She is just bubbly and always seems to have a smile on her face even when she is worn out and tired. I have found it pretty easy to get along with her and be able to have conversations about our families, friends and life struggles with. She is definitely a character, you never know what she will say or do next...but that is one of the many things I love about her! We seemed to have a wonderful system to working together as well. I am more of the paperwork person when the two of us are on and she will cook. Which I am definitely learning a lot from both Becca and Hannah what it takes to cook a meal and learning wonderful new recipes. I think the thing I admire the most about Hannah is definitely the way she carries her passions. She may talk about plants and gardening a lot but I do admire her for her knowledge in the things she loves to do and is passionate about working with and her faith. She is never shy to share with the girls what she has been reading in her devotions and our Sunday School each week. It is something I hope to aspire to do more. God wants us to do and share the Word and Hannah is definitely doing that, it is something that lifts my spirits up on a bad day and encourages me to try harder.

 

Then there is Caitlain. We don't work in the same cottage but we do have our days off together. Which I think helps us get together more and communicate about many different things. She is my Starbucks buddy, which we cannot go a single break without stopping for coffee. :) We have one of those friendship that I think developed quickly. From simply starting to hangout together since we had days off together, to sitting down and having deep conversations. I was surprised this last break I had to find that we had SO much in common with our pasts and our family situations. I particularly remember the night before we went back on duty she came over to borrow a can opener because she couldn't find hers. I was struggling that night just with so many emotions and frustrations from the past week (see my previous blog post) and was looking to vent and I just wasn't getting it from my mom like I was hoping. She came over and we talked for a good hour and half just sitting on the kitchen counter talking and eating salsa. I won't go into detail the topic and discussion we had but we found out so much about each other and how much our families were the same and how we had some of the same struggles. Well 5 minutes later I text her thanking her for talking and letting me vent even though she just came over for the can opener. Well she replied back saying it was definitely something that was on her mind as well and God must have known we were meant to talk to each other and share our stories and vent because no sooner had she walked in the door she found her can opener...right in front of where she was standing! Now God must have planned for us to talk or she would have found that. It is amazing how those things work! It is amazing the people God puts in your life at the right time, and I am fairly certain God placed each of these wonderful ladies in my life and the right moment, and these friendships are blossoming each day and I cannot wait to see them continue. I definitely admire the character Caitlain brings. She has been here the longest out of all the staff, a little over two years. So she is definitely the most wise. And I just love that as much as the kids tear into her and claim they don't like her...it makes me like her even more. She has such courage and wisdom that she doesn't care what they say and she does what she loves to do down here. We both have talked about staying here long term for awhile and possibly even settling down at some point in our lives in Henderson, and I think the fact that she is so accepting of the way God is working in her life while here is amazing. She is a bright and beautiful woman of God and she is someone who can hold me accountable and inspires me to be better and truly think about my life and what God has in store for me.

I don't know if these three read my blog at all. But regardless of if they do or don't I just want to thank you three for being such amazing friends and wonderful women of God that inspire me to be a better person. You three are amazing, beautiful and courageous and God has special plans for all of you and I hope that I am there to witness and encourage the blessings! I love you all!

Ashley

This shift has probably been one of the most stressful weeks of my entire time being here at Grace Children's Home. I am super thankful to be on my time off, even if it is filled up with appointments, classes and different chores. It all started on my very first day on duty.

Monday: My first day on duty started out not completely horrible. The kids went to school without a hitch. Then after school everything to seem to take a turn for the worse. We were sitting down to work on study time and our youngest girl worked on her homework just fine which has been a first for quite awhile. Now if they still have homework after study time they need to work on it after dinner and she knew that. Well after dinner comes around and I was playing Phase 10 with two of our other residents. Well my co-staff asked our youngest girl how her homework was coming, and she said it was done. So like any other day she asked to see her completed homework so that we could verify that. Well the girl said "No, trust me it is done." She asked again to see her homework because we didn't want her to get in trouble if it wasn't done the next day again. Well she slammed her books down and said "No I am done! Now I am going to play the game too. I will deal myself in." She proceeded to deal herself in and I told her "No you need to show us your homework is complete before you can play." At this point she threw her hand of cards down on the floor. So my co-staff asked if all the other residents could please go downstairs to play even though it was inconvenient for them. Well at this the younger girl began to protest to which one of our older girls had to speak her mind and say "Why don't you just do your homework and stop acting like a child." Well of course that didn't go over to well with the girl and she threw the entire deck of Phase 10 cards at the girl's face. Well she react of course by trying to reach for her, but she stopped herself. But instinctively Becca reached her arm in front of her to stop her in case. Well the youngest girl took off down the hall. We asked the other girl to go downstairs to cool down but before we could the youngest ran outside. So I followed her all around town and ended up at the park where I found her on top of the slide sitting. I tried to talk to her and figure out what was the real problem behind her reacting that way. She simply asked if I was mad at her. At that time the program manager showed up at the park after being called. She asked the girl what was going on and she went "The other girl attacked me!" Well we tried to talk to her and reason and see what was going on before that happened. The girl climbed down the ladder and said "She is gonna get what's coming to her" and proceeded to pick up a big stick and start walking towards the cottage. I informed Becca to lock the doors at the cottage and we ended up chasing her back to the cottage since she was running full speed at the door. After not being able to get in the program director, manager and I followed her to the park where we ended up talking with her for a good half hour or so and getting to the bottom of the real issues and calming her down enough to return to the cottage. She went to bed simple as that after being worn out from all that had happened....Happy day one for me! It was probably the craziest day I had ever had here at Grace. I was so overwhelmed by the time I got back to the cottage at 9:00pm that I just couldn't comprehend what all had just happened.  It is that moment that you feel drained and just want to crawl into bed. Thankfully Becca was willing to help with a lot of the paperwork while I was out, and the other girl had calmed down and all the other girls had gone to bed by the time I returned. It was that simple thing that made a huge difference to just talk with Becca and our program manager about what had happened and simply just go to bed.
Tuesday: Well Tuesday came around and after the night before we decided to move bathroom arrangements around so that those two girls weren't sharing a bathroom anymore. Well after school we decided it would be best for the two girls, along with myself and the two program managers and the program director to sit down and discuss and process what happened the night before, how we can make it NOT happen again and how they can work on controlling their anger issues and ways we can help them go cool down. I think all in all it worked out well, it is just a matter of if the girls actually took it to heart. Which usually here it is all what can I say in order to leave this meeting or what can I do in order to go home sooner. So I don't really buy into it 100% until they can prove it. Well we get all the kids into bed and Becca and I go downstairs to go to bed. Great! Well 11:30pm hits and I am woken up by this beeping alarm noise. I laid there for a few minutes trying to figure out what the heck that noise was! Well I look over to see my alarm clock is out which means the power is out. So naturally the only thing that could be beeping is the Fire Alarm Box. So I climb out of bed grab my keys and my phone and get into the staff closet. And let me tell you trying to find the alarm box keys in the dark and then unlock the box and turn the alarm off with only a light from your phone is not that easy at all! So finally I got the box shut off and Becca and I sat down in the hallway in the basement trying to figure out what we were going to do next. We decided that since the power was out and there was no heat then that we would grab our blankets and go sleep upstairs on the couches since it was warmer. Well leave it to me my only pair of sweatpants were at my off duty house so here I am in my basketball shorts and a tshirt. Well Becca loaned me a pair of her sweatpants, but since she is taller than I am they were slightly bigger than me so I ended up pulling them over my shorts as well. It may have looks silly but man were they comfortable! So we ended up going upstairs on the couches.

Wednesday: Well it is now 1am and Becca and I were still up trying to come up with a plan in case the kids didn't have school that day due to the power outage. All the while it was hailing, snowing, pouring rain and thunder storming outside! It was the craziest storm I had ever seen! Not to mention that with the power out all over town it was pitch dark outside so it was super creepy out! We thought this is surely what it would look like when the Apocalypse happens. Well we decided we would get a few hours of sleep in case someone needed us and we were no good when we were dead tired. So we fell asleep, her on one of the couches and me on the floor. Well next thing you know we both wake up at 3am at the same time. It is like that feeling when you know something is out of place but you can't place what it is. Well a few minutes later we laid there listening and one of the girl's doors opened. Well she started walking out towards us not seeing us and so I flashed my phone light on her before she stepped on me. Well scared the tar out of her! We explained the power was out and that if she needed to use the bathroom let us know and we would give her light. Well she goes "Yeah isn't this the bathroom?" And we were just like....uh no this is the living room...kinda far away. Needless to say, whether she slept walk out into the living room or she snuck out to get something to eat but heard a noise from coming our way...you can decide. So I got up led her to the bathroom and she went back to bed. Well now Becca and I are completely awake. Even though you can't really survive and function well on only 2 hours of sleep you would be surprised at how awake you are. So it is now close to 4am and both Becca and I are wide awake! So what do we do? We start planning. We decided we should move the milk outside since it is colder out there and it won't spoil then. Then we were trying to figure out what to do for light in case the power didn't come on for quite awhile and the kids still had school. We hadn't heard anything yet so we figured they did. Well then I remembered that I had an emergency flash light in my truck outside. So I bundled up and went down the deck steps to my truck...the entire town and ground was pure ice! Everywhere you walked it was "crunch crunch crunch" from ice. My truck was COVERED in ice. The only way I could get in thankfully was the back but other than that there was no way I would be able to open my truck. Well you know that feeling when your mind gets the best of you? Well it was 4 am, I was tired, it was pitch dark out and nobody and nothing was out it was pure silence. Well of course due to all of that my mind got the best of me. So as I was digging in my truck I kept looking over my shoulders and my first thought was "Great this would be the perfect opportunity for some serial killer to come sneak up behind me and kill me and nobody would know who did it!" Of course I bolted back up the stairs inside after that! I normally wouldn't even think of something like that so I just blamed it on the lack of sleep and the bizarre things that have been going on the past few days. So we get all of that taken care of and decide we better get some sleep before the kids wake up in case they do have school so we would have to get up at 6am. So we fall asleep and at 6 am we contact our program manager to see if there was any news about school since the power was out. Well they had a 2 hour late start so we got up and told the girls that the power was out, school was delayed and we would wake them when they needed to get up since they had no alarm clocks. Of course they are always pleased to have more sleep so they didn't mind. So we went back to bed for a little bit. We then got the notice that school was cancelled as the girls were getting ready for school. They were less than thrilled but what do you do when there is no power. You make the best of it and go on. Well the power ended up coming back on later that morning. So a few of the girls and I went out and sprinkled salt all over the sidewalks and porch since everything was ice. We then spent the day playing cards, having manicures and pedicures and after lunch we baked cookies and have dinner since it was cold out, youth group was cancelled and it was a special occasion we had some tea and watched a movie. Normally they only get a movie on Fridays but given the odd day we figured it would be a nice change. Thankfully the power stayed on again and we had heat and went to bed worn out and ready for a fresh start on Thursday.

Thursday: Well the kids went back to school and that gave us the opportunity to get some paperwork and much needed work done since we hadn't been able to the day before. Well we get to school and one of our girls decided to yell at another one of our staff and tell her to mind her own business since she wasn't her staff. Well that is not okay so she got in trouble. Because as I told her, regardless of whether or not you like the staff, we are still staff, it doesn't matter if they are the cottage staff, or another cottage staff. You still need to listen to them. Well, she didn't like that but didn't do anything else either.Then the youngest decided to throw a fit because of consequences she had and walked out again. So I followed her once again. Thankfully it didn't last very long. She walked downtown as it was snowing out after yelling at me to go away. When she found out the program manager wasn't there...since most people close offices after 5 and go home. She simply walked back to the cottage, stood outside a few minutes and walked back in. The shortest one yet but none the less my patience had worn out when the power had gone out the night before. I was hanging by a thread and wishing break would come because I was simply done with this week. We ended up having to call the program manager to come over, then the other came over to hangout and deal with her because she wasn't cooperating at all. So finally they got her to go to bed.

Friday: Day five for me. I am completely exhausted, more than the typical I am on day five and drained. I was just completely checked out physically, emotionally and ready to go on break because of all that had happened this past week. I just wanted one normal day. Of course that didn't happen. I received a call from the program manager at 11:00am to find out that our youngest girl got pulled out of history class because she wasn't cooperating with the teacher and wasn't working. Needless to say she had to do an ISS and figure out how to cooperate with the teachers before she would be allowed in school again. Well, she threw a fit so she came back to the cottage and we told her she was going to do homework, work on projects and consequences all day because she is supposed to be in school so it wasn't going to be "let's hang around all day and do nothing". She did her homework fine and then when I was out doing errands she threw a fit during projects with my co staff Hannah and wouldn't listen. So I get back to the cottage to find her in her room. She comes out and asked to see her consequences. Throws another fit about how many she had and tore up her behavior chart and threw it in the garbage. Well we just decided to ignore her because we didn't want to give her our attention with her fits. So she threw her folder in the garbage as well along with the cottage consequence journal. We ignored her, but she ended up having to dig them out later. She then proceeded to tear things up at the counter including pens. Well I turned around to get some water out of the fridge and she starts throwing paper and pen pieces at me. I swear it took all my strength not to turn around and get after her. Let me just make it clear, it takes a lot to break my patience. I am a very patient person but after the week I had been having, I almost snapped. I think I need to start picking up running or something to focus that on. Then all of a sudden she turned around again and had a great afternoon. She accepted that she wouldn't be doing movie night that night and worked upstairs, helped make dinner and went to bed that night easy. We think it was because she got to spend Saturday branding cows with one of our program managers and she didn't want to ruin that opportunity. But hey I will take what I can get.

Saturday: Day 6...went really well! We spent the day hanging out. We played Eight base with Girl's Cottage, which is basically kick ball only you hit with your arm instead of kicking it, and you can run to either 1st or 3rd base instead of just running to 1st base. We dressed up in ridiculous outfits, which I will post pictures of Hannah and I only since for privacy reasons we cannot show you our girls. But needless to say the girls dressed up just as silly as we did. We ended up having a great time, then we went fishing with Girl's Cottage. Coming back and watching a movie that night since we were just worn out. It was the best day of my entire shift and a GREAT way to end my week and go off on a good night!

Sunday: My first day of was super fun. I got to spend the entire day in Grand Island with Caitlain and we took one of my girls to buy her prom dress! IT was a great opportunity to go out and just have fun, shop and of course Starbucks! IT was very refreshing but tiring once we got back around 7pm. The rest of my break is consisting of tons of sleep and just hanging out. I had my Foster Parent Training Class today so that took up some time and I am helping out tomorrow so I come on early tomorrow instead of tomorrow night. So I will be relaxing the rest of my break and preparing to go back on duty. Thanks again for all the support you all continue to give me, along with the prayers, they have been especially helpful and needed this past week. I look forward to continue sharing my adventure with you all! Miss you all tons!

Love,
Ashley

 Ice Storm from Wednesday! Crazy! Just the day before it was 70 degrees!

 Grace's new baby duck and chicks! Aren't they super cute!

 More of the ice storm

 Meet Chuck the Duck!

 Me and Chuck the Duck! He is a super cute fuzzy little guy! :)

 He follows you everywhere you go...he thinks you are his mama!

 Hannah and I ready to take on Girl's Cottage in Eight Base!

 We finished our bathroom finally in our off duty house!

 Are you scared yet? Good! :)

Yay doesn't it look nice! :D

Let me start out with some wonderful news! Today was my first day off this shift and it was a very productive day. I called Tmobile and squared away my phone situation...so after 3 months of battling I will now only have ONE phone bill to pay now and my old phone will be cancelled with no fees after this month! YAY! Second wonderful news...I am officially a Nebraska Driver! I have my temporary Nebraska License! The real one will be in the mail in a week or so! How exciting is that!? It's crazy to believe that my Minnesota lifestyle is slowly moving behind me. I have been here a little over three months and my life is really coming together in the wonderful world of Nebraska. I couldn't ask for a better place for God to have called me.

I finished this 6 day shift thinking "Wait it is already my break? Could another week really have gone by so fast?" A lot of it I think was the fact that it had been a crazy busy week plus the Easter holiday. It seemed super weird to have my first Easter not at my Nana and Papa's. It is a tradition every year to have Easter Sunday with my cousins and my Nana and Papa and to not this year was very odd. But it gave me an opportunity to start a new tradition. I was off for Good Friday but we had an Easter Egg hunt for our girls and Girl's Cottage girls for those who hadn't gone home for a visit. So Caitlain and I went out to Chuck's (our boss) house in the country to hide Easter eggs since it was our day off. We then proceeded to hide the eggs with the help our our new found friend John Mark the kitty who helped us hide them. Starbucks in hand and a bag full of Easter eggs and wonderful weather we had a blast! The kids had a blast as well finding the eggs and getting candy of course.

Saturday we ended up coloring Easter Eggs with the girls! It was super fun to just spend the day outside flying kites, dying Easter eggs and spending some quality time together while the other 2 girls had visits at home. It was a pretty low key day. We did some baking preparing our Carrot Cake for Easter Lunch the next day after church and getting some side dishes ready.

Sunday we got up for the sunrise service at 7am. It was a spectacular service to be able to see the sunrise at 7:15am and listen to the service of Jesus rising again at the same time! It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend that time worshiping the Lord with the girls as well. We then had breakfast at church at 8am. Then went to the regular service at 9:30am. To the surprise of those who know me pretty well I wore an Easter dress I picked out by choice and I loved it! :) We then had a big Easter lunch at Castle with all the other Grace kids and staff that were around. It was a wonderful time to just hangout together and have a wonderful family meal and play some Rock Band and fellowship. We completely wore the kids...and ourselves out so we went back to our cottage at like 3pm that afternoon put on our comfy clothes, took a nap and then watched Matilda that night just to unwind.

Monday the kids had no school so a few of the girls came back that day and we just spent the day relaxing, doing homework, and really just trying to re-energize for the week. It wasn't until Tuesday that things got really interesting. We had an issue with our youngest girl who had been here for three weeks, she didn't want to do her homework. And in the midst of the argument she went into her room...slammed her door, slammed dresser drawers, walked outside and so I followed. We ended up walking all around town with her trying to get rid of me, and ended up at the entrance to the town at which point the Program Manager had to take over and drive next to her in his truck while she ran 3 miles into the corn field before deciding to come back. Can you say my life never is dull here at Grace Children's Home? For sure! Though even though there are definitely rough days and those days that I wish I could just scream and walk away...I wouldn't trade them for anything. I know that I am helping these kids grow and hopefully go home to a better environment, or grow and go to better places. And they continue to help me grow every day as well. I mean we all have things we need to change in our lives right? IT isn't just them. And I tell them that daily. They have things to change, as well as I do. We are all humans, we are not perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and change for the better. It is all I can ask for from them and myself, but they need to be willing to change as well.

The rest of the week flew by with business. We went to York College for a college visit and what they call Songfest. Where basically their sorority type clubs perform these musical performances they come up with and it was fabulous! It was one of the best shows I have been to in awhile. IT was great to be able to take our juniors and seniors onto the campus and show them around and see what college life is like. Something to look forward to and start to think about for them. We didn't get back until late that Wednesday night so we were exhausted. Prior to the songfest while the kids were at school I Went to pick up one of our program managers from the airport in Lincoln and then we went and did a preplacement at the detention center. This time it went better than my first time at the detention center. I wasn't as nervous. IT seemed almost normal now to me even though I feel like it isn't normal but in my line of work it is. So it was a very long day of running around and doing errands. My last day on Thursday was simple with errands, grocery shopping at Walmart and preparing to get our new girl which we got today. She came today and so our cottage is now up to 5 girls! It is crazy how even though 5 seems like a lot of girls it is a small number. We will be getting another new girl as well on the 18th so we will have 6 girls in our cottage. We can hold up to 8 so 6 girls is pretty normal around here which that is a lot of teenage girl drama in one house! I hope that I have the strength to survive! But I have faith and have help of course. This is what God has provided me to do and I have faith that I can do the work He has planned for me and whatever challenges He gives me. IT is a great lesson to learn all He teaches me and I am in this job for the long run. :) I can easily see myself here for at least a full 2 years so we shall see what God has in store for me as the months continue to follow.

Thank you again for following my journey and sharing in my adventure! Here are a few pictures from my Easter weekend! Hope you enjoy! Love you all!