Randomness

How about some random thoughts from Kim? Okay? Okay.

• I am so grateful for friends, old and new. I feel like all I want to do is talk about the adoption process, MF, Ecuador, etc. all the time. My long-time friends have always been a great support to me in this process and I am so grateful. But, I am also grateful for new friendships that this process has brought to me as well. I have been emailing/texting multiple people who are/have been in this crazy process and I find an immense amount of gratification in these new friendships. Though I have never met any of these people in person, there is a bond there, simply because they are going through the same process and have such an understanding of what it is really like. I consider these relationships an added gift in this process. One that I was not expecting, but are nevertheless so welcome. Thank you all.

•  We went to Idaho this weekend and I brought back my violin! (This is a big deal for me...) I haven't touched the thing in approximately 7 years, but I unearthed in from the closet at my mom's house and decided that I ought to try to take it up again. Remember that in high school, I was so good that my violin teacher finally told my mom to stop wasting her money on my lessons. That's talent, people.  I played a few songs at my mom's house after the unearthing and some more today and I found that I could remember exactly how to play (not that it sounds pretty), but that I could not remember the names of the notes for the life of me. I will work on that. Me teaching me? Sounds productive.

•  We celebrated my Grandma's 80th birthday over the weekend and had an early Thanksgiving dinner. I love my Grandma. She is one of my favorite, favorite people. She has endured so much, including the death of three of her children in the last four years. She is such a good example to me and I love her so much. For her birthday, we all surprised her with handwritten letters of our memories and thoughts about her. I think it meant a lot to her.

•  Devin and I are trying to dedicate ourselves to learning Spanish again. We checked out some cd's at the library and while there, they let us know that we can access a learning center on their website with our library card. Sweeet. Like the violin, I have found that it is coming back to me rather quickly, but it is surely imperfect. Devin and I should make quite the pair-- he is fluent in Portuguese since he served his mission there, so he understands quite a bit, but his speaking is much different. He tries to accent things like he is speaking Portuguese. We'll see how we do.

•  I re-read this talk from General Conference from President Uchtdorf recently and loved it. It just resonated so much with me. It is called "You Matter to Him." Read it. Enjoy it.

• My aunt Linda's headstone has been placed. After church yesterday, a crew of us climbed into my cousin Cortney's beast of a vehicle and drove to the cemetery to see it. It is beautiful. It was really sad to see it though, as it made the whole thing seem so...final. I know it was really final on June 22, but I don't know... I just don't have words to express the sadness. It's still so hard. I know time heals all wounds and that has been true in this experience, but the wound is still open and raw for me.

•  The other day I dug out my favorite picture of Devin, ever. He is about a year old in it and he is sitting on a chair with his next door neighbor, who was only 8 days or something younger than him. Devin is literally about twice the size of Rendall and it cracks me up every time. I wanted to scan it while we were Idaho so I could have a digital copy, but I forgot. Dang it. I was thinking about it because Jace is SO big. Everywhere we go, people tell me how huge he is. I wanted to see what Devin looked like around this age. They have no resemblance to each other, but the size definitely comes from Devin. We like big boys.

• One of my new friends shared THIS video with me. It makes me teary-eyed just watching it. It is the children in the orphanage where MF is. See if you can spot her in the video. I found her and it made my day. It's a picture I have not seen of her and you know I cling on to anything I can get!

That's all for now. But, I can't promise that there won't be any more randomness later.