"Encourage one another, and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing."  

I Thessalonians 5:11

Aaron and I both feel that it's important for each member of our family to understand how God created him or her as a unique being, with strengths and weaknesses and gifts.  One of the most accurate and fun tools we've found is the Meyers-Briggs personality types.  Aaron found a graphic representing likely stress triggers for each type (aka MBTI stress heads!) and printed each one of our types.  They now have a permanent home on the fridge.

  In addition, "How Each Myers-Briggs Type reacts to stress (and how to help!)" offers a less concise, yet super helpful, summary of things that potentially stress each personality.  As you might imagine, we have six very different personalities living under our roof.  In fact, Aaron and I are exact opposites.   One of the things that sends my head spinning is "disregarding my established rules and regulations", but two of the things that send Benjamin's head spinning are "required planning" and "routine".  It took us a long time to figure out and then talk about how these differences played out in our every day lives, but now I'm so thankful that we did!

I encourage you, whether married or single, house full of kids or just a quiet dog, to learn how God created you and those around you.  This understanding is part of stewarding our relationships.  

"Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace.  And the God of love and peace will be with you."  2 Corinthians 13:11

"The truth is, I reflected, having done so much thinking by the clothesline, that if you look for the best in any place it is there.  If you look for the worst, you can find it easily.  And a swift piercing pang of homesickness is really what the Sunday school teachers would call 'a challenge.'  A challenge to experience every bit of beauty that is afforded by wherever you may be."  

~Gladys Taber, "Stillmeadow Sampler"

Isaiah 32:18 has been one of my favorite verses for a long time.  After we began moving regularly and ripping up roots and putting new ones down repeatedly, the thought of "undisturbed places of rest" became even more precious to me.  My third culture kids call several places home.  For Olivia and Katherine, who were five and almost one when we first ventured across the Pacific Ocean, home is most definitely in the Solomon Islands.  Last week, when we crossed the state line from Arkansas into Texas, I was surprised to hear Benjamin comment on how much he loved Texas and how much it felt like home.  Home for me is our little fixer-upper in my home-town.  But knowing that we will be moving again in a few months makes me really appreciate Gladys Taber's challenge "to experience every bit of beauty that is afforded by wherever you may be."

Year of the Bird

When I bought this puzzle of migratory bird routes, I had no idea that National Geographic had proclaimed 2018 as the "Year of the Bird" in honor of the Migratory Bird Treaty passed one hundred years ago.  As our afternoon heat index repeatedly climbs into the triple digits, we're looking forward to staying inside and completing this puzzle.

Happy Birthday, Olivia!

Looking back over more than ten years of keeping this blog, what a joy to watch my kids grow and mature, especially as I record their birthdays.  This scrapbook of our days reveals that my Olivia has really blossomed!

She's looking forward to tackling biology in school this fall, because it gets her one step closer to taking anatomy and physiology and her goal of becoming a nurse.  

Olivia has a strong personality and a strong body, but her heart is tender toward small, helpless things like babies and animals.

To celebrate, Sarah made an enormous cake with layers of strawberry cheesecake, brownie, homemade strawberry ice cream, and strawberry cake, all smothered in chocolate cream cheese ice cream.

All she requested for her birthday was that our family take a trip to Murry's Dinner Playhouse to enjoy "Grease".  What a sweet day to celebrate our sweet and spunky girl.

Herbs Gone Wild - Rosemary

My tiny herb garden is still overflowing its brick banks, so please come and cut some fragrant bouquets if you find yourself in central Arkansas!  Honey Rosemary Chicken and Broccoli Brown Rice Pilaf is our favorite combination of recipes to use up rosemary.

Honey Rosemary Chicken

Serves 6

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup minced fresh rosemary

2 Tbsp. olive or canola oil

6 bone-in, skinless chicken breast halves (7 oz each)

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

In a bowl, combine the honey, vinegar, rosemary, and oil; mix well.  Pour half of the marinade into a large resealable plastic bag; add chicken.  Seal bag and turn to coat; refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  Cover and refrigerate remaining marinade.  Drain and discard marinade from chicken.  Place chicken bone side down in a 13x9x2 inch baking dish.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Bake, uncovered at 350 degrees for 55-65 minutes, or until juices run clear, basting occasionally with reserved marinade.

200 calories     6 g fat (1 g sat)     79 mg cholesterol     462 mg sodium     7 g carb     

trace fiber     29 g protein

Broccoli Brown Rice Pilaf

Serves 6 (2/3 cup)

1 cup uncooked brown rice

2 1/4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

2 Tbsp minced fresh rosemary (I usually double this amount)

2 garlic cloves, minced (I usually double this one, too!)

2 cups chopped fresh broccoli (you guessed it, I also double the broccoli)

1/4 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup unsalted sunflower kernels

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

In a large nonstick skillet coated with non-stick cooking spray, sauté rice until lightly browned.  Add the broth, rosemary and garlic, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 40 minutes or until rice is almost tender.  Stir in the broccoli, almonds, sunflower kernels, salt, and pepper.  Cover and cook 3-5 minutes longer or until rice is tender and broccoli is crisp tender.  Fluff with a fork.

202 calories     6 g fat (1 g sat)     0 cholesterol     414 mg sodium     31 g carbs     

2 g fiber     7 g protein

Perseverence

When you go out of town and you bring your viola to practice for your college auditions, but you forget your music stand and you break your shoulder rest...yet, you practice anyway?  That's called perseverance.  Well done, my son.

Brains and Books

As if I needed another reason to read aloud to my family!  The research done by Paul Zak (enjoy his fabulous Ted Talk) looks at story telling and the chemicals that our brains release (cortisol and oxytocin) when hearing a good story.  On our trip to Dallas this weekend, I could hear Olivia (who is a strong aural learner) reading aloud to Katherine, and it made me happy to know that my girls are cementing their already strong relationship through shared stories.  God made our bodies to do some amazing things!

Baby fix

As often happens when time is short and hearts are close, I forget to take as many pictures as I want.  As a visual learner, pictures help me cement special moments in my mind.  Our time with the precious Cody family this weekend was WAY too short.

Benjamin has long been called the "baby-whisperer" in our house, and he proved his worth once again.  Growing up living at close quarters with families of all ages and stages, our kids are used to having little ones around and have really been missing the opportunities to interact with small people.  Me, too.

What a delight to enjoy even brief snippets of time together, to share food and fellowship, to clean up the dishes, and to talk about joys and burdens and what God has been doing in our lives.  

Aaron and the girls got to visit with the Cody and Huntley families earlier this year, but I hadn't seen either family in way too long.  

And now the Huntleys have added sweet baby Ruby to their family.  We've found that people who serve in Bible translation tend to have soft hearts that are authentic and transparent.  

Earlier this week, when I texted Ruth to ask if I could swing by and hug her neck on the weekend, I had no idea she had birthed a baby only hours before.  Nevertheless, her sweet family briefly opened their door to us (even though we could have soaked up their sweet spirits all day long), and I got a sweet baby fix, too!  

As we left, one of their sons piped up and asked, "When are we going to see you next?"  Before I could answer, he responded to his own question.  "Maybe in a couple of years!"  And we all nodded to this wise third-culture-kid who already knows that God connects our hearts over time and distance.

Solomon Islands Independence Day

When you live and work together under challenging circumstances for any length of time, strong bonds are formed.  

This crazy family loves the Solomon Islands as much as we do, 

and when we discovered that Solomon Islands Independence Day fell on our only free weekend for a long, LONG time, we made a quick decision to drive to Dallas for a zippy fast trip.

 Because life is worth celebrating.

Friday Favorite Five

Music to accompany today's Friday Favorite Five is something I've found myself humming a lot lately, Let the Words of My Mouth Bring You Praise.

1)  Velvet Ashes.  A ministry dedicated for women serving overseas.  It's beautiful.  Encouraging.  Challenging.

2)  Cinnamon Roasted Almonds and Cocoa Dusted Almonds.  I know Walmart gets a bad rap, but, y'all, a little handful of either one of these just makes me happy.  They will definitely be going in the suitcase as a treat to take back to the Solomon Islands in a few months.

3)  Ten Questions that Every Expat (or Repat) Parent Should Ask About Their Kids.  This is a great list of questions for any parent, even if they don't have Third Culture Kids, and it's a good idea to ask your kids these questions directly, after you've had a chance to think.

4)  Six Exercises Everyone Should Do.   Simple yet powerful, these exercises are going in my "bag of tricks" to solidify now so I can take them back to the Solomon Islands.  And as soon as I can get one of those big stability balls, I'm adding this plank workout, too.  Although I'm not sure I can climb as quickly as their rate of difficulty, so I'll probably stretch out the fourteen days.  Progress over perfection - good stewardship is the goal!

5)  Free prayer printables from iMom.  I especially love the "10 Mom Prayers" (it's on my bathroom mirror), I pray them for my husband, too.

Even with amazing technology at my fingertips, I'm a paper kind of girl when it comes to getting organized.  July means our family calendar and my personal planner just flipped to new, clean, papers.  I love my new daily planner!

As I try to squeeze six different schedules on the little lines (even our big two feet by three feet family calendar runs out of room quickly), I'm struck with the need for wisdom in our season of transition.  We are increasingly going in different directions, and this mama has two college students who are more and more beautifully independent.  Lord, show me how to "number my days" well and give me vision and creativity to build my family well.

Maybe it wasn't a traditional Independence Day celebration, but we did enjoy Sarah's famous red velvet cobbler with homemade cream cheese ice cream.

And we did spend time with special friends.

Our quiet, stay-at-home, celebration, where the mamas could sit and visit or capture memories from behind the camera, was exactly what our family needed.

It was still light outside when our festivities were over, but our hearts were full of gratitude for sweet friendship and for our home country.

Good Things

The last twenty-four hours have been so full of good things.  

Things like hanging out with friends from high school.  It's rare to find like-minded people in so many areas (that's a nice way of saying people that are as strange as we are!).

Things like annual physicals.  Although in our case, checkups are never annual because we are in the Solomon Islands.  I don't take strong, healthy bodies for granted, and I'm so grateful for the medical care we can find in America.

Things like Shakespeare plays:  Much Ado About Nothing.  There's something about seeing a play (especially one of Shakespeare's) live that brings so much more emotion and connection than just reading the words on the page.

All three, God's good gifts, just in different packages.