6 years

**old picture, i promise i will post new ones soon!**

This past Saturday was our 6th anniversary! I really can't believe it...it seems like yesterday that my bridesmaids and I were getting our nails done in the dark the day before our wedding, due to Hurricane Ivan hitting Atlanta pretty hard. However, the actual day was gorgeous and so much fun! At the same time, it seems so long ago! So much has happened since then!

Well, one of our favorite traditions that we do every year is to fill out a book that Brett's mom gave us when we got married. It is our "wedding anniversary book". It has a page for each year with quotes and room to write your memories--good and bad--from the last year, and a place to put a picture. We usually go out of town for our anniversary, but seeing as we just moved to another country, we settled for dinner and a massage (but, not nearly as nice a massage as you would get in the states!) We were also able to sneak in some time to talk over our last year, and talk about the year to come. It is always one of my favorite things that we do, and if my house were burning down, this book would surely be the one thing I would want to take with me (along with Brett and Harrison too, of course).

So, here in blurb fashion, are our memories (both good and bad) from September 18, 2009 through the same date in 2010:

UAE, Oman, going to London as a family, Harrison starts walking at 18 months (finally!), Dad and Isabel's divorce, trying to have a baby...getting pregnant...miscarrying...still trying to have a baby, friends leaving, Deacon Dooley, watching our church become particularized, marriage conference in Miami, Iron Bowl with The Baileys, beach with the Baileys (we love these friends!), Outback bowl, Disney, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, H turns 2, Lauren turns 30, getting snowed in with the Fierer fam in NC, St. Petersburg, Grandma passing away, filing our first police report (for a stolen bugaboo!), lots of goodbyes, lots of transition, lots of going away parties, Easter egg hunts, Easter with the Dooleys in Orlando, going to a taping of the Ellen show, Braves spring training games (H's 1st), moved to China, watched God provide for our move (ie. selling our car, renting our home, etc), Parenthood, Glee, Seasons 52, Ravenous Pig, First Watch, Sweet, feeling hopeful, uncertain and homesick, 3 weeks in Atlanta with family and precious friends, celebrated by eating ribs at Tonyroma's in China--ha!

And those are just a few memories to scratch the surface...As we looked back at the past year, we laughed and were sad at how things looked different than how we hoped they would be at this time. But, we also talked about hopes for year 7, and some (but not all) included:

Growing in our marriage, Baby, Potential Grad School for Brett, friends and family visiting (hint, hint!), new friends, and parenting with grace.

I love Brett and am so glad he found me! He literally just walked right up to me one day and introduced himself...I totally ignored him...and he has not turned back ever since! I am grateful to get to walk through life with him in this difficult, yet amazing covenant called marriage.

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"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." --Emily Bronte

The 5 Letter Word

Well, thanks to those of you who lifted Harrison up. Please keep doing so! And before you keep reading, please heed my warning that this post is gross. It names many bodily functions, so if you don't read it, I understand. I, however, for some odd reason, want to remember this little nugget of a story, because my dear husband has been such a trooper through it all, not to mention the mini-trooper has been just as fabulous.

You see, the "issues" I was talking about involved the lack of going to the bathroom. As some of you know, Harrison is not a stranger to traveling and a handful of times in his life has gotten constipated for several days on end. Once when he was a baby baby, he went 11 days without going. I was at my wit's end when my sweet friend, Tiffany, told me of a home remedy of giving him Karo Syrup in a dropper...worked like a charm! And it worked the other 4-5 times it has happened in his life...

Until we insert our move to Asia in his little life. For the last month, he has only pooped 1 time a week. And his last stint was, again, 11 days. I think he was going for the record. That, coupled with the fact he won't touch the local food and wasn't eating well, was starting to unnerve me. I wasn't worried at first, because it was jet lag, right? And also, those of you who know me, know that I don't worry a whole lot about these type of things, but 11 days?? And guess what, the Karo wasn't working this time (and for those of you who are wondering, yes, you can buy Karo syrup here, although mine is borrowed right now!)

So, we finally call the doctor. We go to him yesterday. He was great, spent an hour with us going over how the large and small intestines work and where they are located in the body. I came to the realization at this time that I truly wasn't paying attention in Mr. Barnhart's biology class in 9th grade...none of it rang a bell. Oops!

And do you know what we had to do? Oh yes, the 5 letter word, we had to give our child an enema. An enema, I tell you. Now, we had already tried this the night before, as our friend Sonya helped me buy one at the local pharmacy. Well, we did it wrong. After 2 failed attempts (because of blockage from 11 days of poop), the third try was a charm. Thankfully he had a dirty diaper right away....but the unfortunate part is that he threw up at the same time...all over Brett.

We decided that Brett was the better one to have gotten the blow...I would have probably immediately thrown up as well and started crying uncontrollably. But, sweet Brett just held Harrison and rocked him as his little body shook. He didn't care that he smelled plain awful or that his favorite shorts might be completely ruined. He just held that sweet boy. Because he's a sweet boy himself with loads of compassion especially on his sick son because Brett has been way more sick than that here in years past.

I told you it was gross. However, the stain came out, even in our tiny 30-year-old washer, it came out...and thankfully Harrison has had several dirty diapers since then. However, we do need to continue giving him the enema twice a day for a few days. And guess who the bad guy is that administers it? You got it...Yours truly. I'm the enemy with the enema. It is truly the worst thing I've ever had to do to him, but I am so thankful for his system to (hopefully) be getting back to normal. Yuck. Please keep praying for him. He has been such a champ through it all, although he does tell us that his "tooshie hurts"...it is so pitiful, but so precious. Please keep praying for his eating as well. Can anyone give me great ideas for fiber in his diet?

I plan to take pictures of our apartment soon and post them so y'all can see where we live. It is such a dear little place. Until then, I hope you all enjoy your day. Ours is just ending, so I will dream about all the wonderful things y'all are doing! Good night!

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, a little family of three went on a great adventure...After a rough couple days of travel, they made it to the other hemisphere in a land far, far away. Little Harrison, the youngest of the 3 did quite well on the airplanes and adjusted to the time very quickly. After 2 weeks, they moved into their palace (aka 4th floor apartment) and have spent the last week settling in. It has been a long, arduous journey filled with lots of highs and lows, but strangely, this place, after not having lived here for 6 years, feels normal. Many other things are not normal, but this far-away land is not one of them.

The city has changed so much so that the little family has to re-find their way everywhere. All the old spots are gone and the way of life here is so different now.

Okay, that may be enough of my fairy-tale writing (for today), but as stated earlier, we are HERE and hopefully I can be a little more consistent in documenting our lives here. We are closing in on a month in-country, which is crazy. It feels very normal to be here, but so much has changed. It's very weird! We are all adjusted to the time difference and still have a little more settling in to do. We have been to Ikea about 800 times (and yes, how crazy is it that there's an Ikea here?) I will take pictures of our place when it's put together a little more and post them. I think we will be really happy here, but it will definitely take some time. Until you hear from me again, here are some things you can pray for for our family::

...My computer is totally broken. Needs a new hard drive. We took it to the store before we left the states and it was completely fine. However, we had to put some software on it to secure our computer and ever since, it has been shutting down. Computers are such a life line here, so please pray that mine gets fixed. (this is why I have no pictures to share!)

...Harrison's stomach. He has gotten into a pattern of only going to the bathroom once a week and this last run has lasted 10 days. At first, we thought it was the jet lag, so we didn't worry, but being close to a month now is concerning. We are taking him to the doctor tomorrow.

...Friends. Enough said. I can live anywhere if I have good relationships, but so far we definitely feel lonely and homesick (except for Harrison, he is by far the most popular Dooley here).

But, overall, we are so very grateful to be here. We know the time will be short, and although we miss the comforts of the place we have called home for several years now, we know that we will cry many tears over leaving East Asia in a couple years. I look forward to sharing with y'all how our family falls in love with this place again!

I will be back with more posts soon!

A sweet story

Hi friends, oh it's been too long! There is much to write, but we have had a terrible time with our computers here. I will write a huge, long post of our travels and first weeks here soon. We are so grateful to be here and our days have been a mixture of wonderful and so very hard. We move into our apartment tomorrow and hopefully will have better internet connections although we have to send my computer to a shop--um, not sure how I feel about that!

But, today I wanted to share a sweet little story for my memory's sake...Every night at bedtime we spend a little time playing with Harrison, singing to him, reading, praying, memorizing the gettysburg address (gotcha! just checking to see if you were paying attention)...Anyway, lately he has really enjoyed us singing to him (which is not a super lovely sound). So, every night after we have prayed, he has asked for "more song". Well, usually the songs are little diddies like "Jesus loves me" or something of the like, and last night both of our hearts melted after we sang to him and he looked up at us and said, "more Jesus?"

Oh, what a sweet, sweet boy we have. We are so thankful for every minute with him...all the easy minutes and the difficult ones too. His life is such a miracle and it is such a privilege to get to watch him grow.

More stories to come on our settling in...please keep us in your prayers as it's been a rollercoaster of emotions and events these past weeks. I'll be back soon, I promise!