Happy Birthday Dear Miss. R!

Our oldest is 22 today. She is our elf child. If you knew her, you'd understand immediately. We have other elf children that follow, but she is the original.

Can I just take a moment and do the Mommy Brag thing? Our oldest is intelligent, kind, good, Godly, funny, entertaining, creative, gifted, outgoing, passionate, loving, and hard headed.

She has traveled all over the United States, to South America and Europe, learned a couple of different languages, has friends all over the world, worked at an orphanage for several months, crafted and created out of everything from forks and bread to paint and clay, read 1000's of books, written at least 100's of pages, talked for years, and had people laughing on more than one continent. Her first semester in college this past fall she earned a 3.8 G.P.A. while working 20 hours a week and making time to meet lots of people, knit (!) and watch several season episodes of T.V. shows

Her plans are to go overseas full time as a missionary to an unreached people group that is disenfranchised from the world, lies, cheats and steals to eat, participates in sex trafficking and is almost 100% illiterate. Knowing what we do about this people group we are glad that "hard headedness" is on the list of character qualities above.

This is the child that used to drive me crazy over the daily "I lost my (insert subject book here) so I guess I can't do (insert school subject here). " Who would "go to the bathroom" with a chapter book and emerge later having read 1/2 of it, who kept asking at age 3 and 4 when we were "going to have our family" (imagine her surprise as it grew!) and who has always been smart and verbal and adorable. Who wore skirts or dresses every.single.day until we moved from CA to OH when she was 8 and who came back from Ecuador wearing make-up and with a clear vision of what God had called her to.

It's been a joy and a privilege to watch this beautiful young woman grow up.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie. I love you!