Friday, June 20, 2008

My Family

Today's post will be short. We're on our way to have breakfast with friends and then spend the day shopping. LONG list. Most of the things we can find at Sam's Club but I'll be hitting a few other stores, too. I'm planning to send the hubby off to do his own thing while I spend an hour or six trying on swimsuits :-( I haven't bought a new suit in at least six years. I think it's actually been closer to ten. Since I go swimming about once every three years, it hasn't been a problem. But due to it's age and, shall we say "expanding responsibilities", it has it's stretched-out-sagging-all-over-the-place issues. I haven't gotten any smaller in the intervening years, folks. So while swimsuits are on sale, I thought I'd go spend a few hours crying trying some on.

But I did want to post some pictures of me and my 'kids'. The one with my son is from just this past Sunday. [He sent me a link to this picture and the one of the whole family and they're posting really small. Not sure what the problem is. But I am even now contacting the son IT support and will try to have the pictures at their normal viewing size by the end of the day. The son IT support will hasten to my rescue {as always} but the shopping, it will no doubt interfere with a timely fix.] The daughter and I posed for ours during our weekend up in Ludington. I love my kids so much and am so proud of them!

And this final picture is my family. We were all together for Father's Day. Had a wonderful time!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I saw your comment about my comment about the mk reentry seminar's on Sarah's site and wanted to contribute. It's a GREAT program! I went through it myself and then was a counselor there as well. I personally vouch for the program at Biola, but I know the CO program is good as well. The Biola program is a team effort by Barnabas International and Mukappa (MUkappa being the national college organization for mks).

In the moment, the best part of the seminar is how FUN it is to be with a ton of mks. It's like summer camp, except better.

However, I think it's also really beneficial in ways that mks don't initially realize. They all think they're fine, which of course for the most part, they are. However, most of those kids have just said goodbye to their home overseas, and the seminar provides them with hope that they will be able to make friends in a new place. They go through sessions about grief and transitions and the mk identity which helps to reassure that "I'm not the only one."

There is really practical counseling about basic things (which is totally unhelpful for the kids from Europe) like how to shop wisely, how to choose a church, what to do about opening bank accounts,how to use a washing machine and an atm, what college would be like.. etc.

Each kid is put in a small group that meets with a counselor. They are given personality tests and career tests. The small groups can be lame or helpful, depending on their counselor. :) Each kid meets at least once individually with their counselor. This is a slightly nerve-wracking thing, and most kids probably don't NEED that time. However, others do. EVERY session (which has 40 kids each) comes out with at least a kid or two that has been sexually abused, has an eating disorder, is severely depressed, has struggled with drug addiction, or something else of the sort. In these cases, the reentry seminar is key in intervening, speaking with parents, and trying to follow through and make sure the kids get into real counseling.

For me, my counselor just helped give me tips of how to deal with the grief I was going through, and that was helpful. She identified that it was an important process.

anyways... I highly recommend it! :) When I came back as a counselor I got to actually work side by side with Ruth Van Reken, which was an awesome privalege.