My sweet-spirited and adventuresome Wendy!!!!!

 Life continues to go well with Wendy.

Last week we took her on a family vacation to a lake in Washington.

She is sweet and quiet-spirited but she has a bold and adventuresome spirit that of course I love!

 She LOVES hamburgers and HATES "red" berries (she insists they taste like "Chinese medicine").  ha.  She eats anything/everything I put in front of her (except berries), despite me continually telling her that I will NOT be offended at all if she doesn't like something.

 She definitely has an attitude of wanting to embrace all that America has to offer and live the "American life" to the fullest while she is here.  Have I mentioned that I love this girl?!

 I can only imagine what she thinks of us.  

While she is with us we are pretty much (totally) doing life as usual and so she sees it all.  The good and fun, and the loud and crazy.  The other night we were sitting at the dinner table.  We had just gotten back from the lake and we were all exhausted.  Marc had gone back to work so I was alone getting the car unpacked from the trip and a last minute trip to Costco (crazy but necessary) and was just getting dinner on the table at 7pm (very late for my kids).  Did I mention how tired we all were? During the dinner, the dog ran inside with muddy feet, Caleb had a coughing attack and threw up inches from where Wendy was sitting, and Jorie (who had been helping Mei in the bathroom) came out to the table carrying Meili's pants that had a huge CHUNK of poop on them to show us all (ARE YOU KIDDING ME????).   And by the way, my family only takes about 10 minutes to eat a meal.  So, all of that "crazy" happened in that time frame.  All I could think throughout all of that was, "well....she is seeing it all!"

ha ha.  I can only imagine what she is thinking.

 One of the many frequent comments that Wendy has made to me is, "Mom, that boy/girl does not look like his/her family?????", with a VERY puzzled look on her face.

We have MANY friends who have adopted "international" children in their family.  Wendy is seeing what "adoption" looks like in all of them, including ours of course.  She is aware that there are orphans in her country but previously was not aware of adoption and continues to have a hard time understanding it. Her English is weak enough that we won't (while she is here) be able to have an in-depth conversation about it.  I have peace that God is at work though and am just trying to trust Him to work on her heart and mind concerning this issue.  Oh, how I hope pray that she will see the deep BEAUTY of these children while she is here and that her thoughts about them would not be shaped by a culture that says they are "worthless" and "bad luck", but instead by a God who says that they were created in His image and therefore have GREAT value!

We are already half way through our time with Wendy.  It is going by so fast.  And it has been very very good!  To Him be the glory!