Hello! A lot has been happening lately. (I really ought to update more often so that I don't have to say that all the time.)

Bracken came back from the vet hospital. We kept him sedated for a few more days, and then he was pretty much back to his old self. Luckily, he hasn't chewed up any more pills lately. He did somehow manage to get out of the yard last week, though, and animal control was called on him. Of course, the fence door was closed tightly, there weren't any holes under the fence, and Bracken has definitely not showed any interest in jumping in the past. Christian and his mom think the next-door neighbor, who has shown himself to be very ambivalent towards dogs, let him out and then called animal control. I don't know if I believe that or not, but it could be. We think he was also the one who called the cops on us last year when we had the Fredrick's (our best friends from church) dogs over and they were barking in the yard. We do try to be considerate about the dogs, but for heavens sake if anyone is having a problem with them they'd get more results from talking to us than sending anyone over. It's not like we have vicious man eating dogs that bark all night. And it's not like the cops or animal control actually did anything to change the situation. In fact the animal control lady said that Bracken was a very nice dog, so we must not be doing too bad.

In other news, our best friends had their baby a week and a half ago. This was obviously difficult, but I think it's going to be OK. They've been pretty busy and we haven't seen them a whole lot, so that gives me some time to adjust to the idea. Of course, you'd think 8 months would have been enough time to adjust to the idea, but then again I was spending a lot of that time specifically NOT dealing with it. Either that or I was using their due date to set deadlines for when I was going to be pregnant.

Lately I've been praying a lot for patience with this whole pregnancy situation, and for the ability to let God handle it. I've been wondering, "Should we stop trying?" "Is there something else I'm supposed to be doing right now?" He told me to keep going, but to keep my eyes open. I really believe that God answers a lot of prayers that way. He doesn't say, "Do this." Rather, he sends along some opportunity and if you keep alert, you can catch it.

Well, this past week we found out that my sister-in-law, who lives in Alaska, has had a relapse of her alcoholism and her soon-to-be 13-year-old daughter has been sent down to California to live with her grandfather. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that the situation there is all that much more healthy, as his wife has problems with mental illness and both of his other daughters have drug problems. So we're thinking about trying to get her to come and live with us for a while. There are many complications and it looks to be a very daunting task, but we're going to see what we can do.

Of course the idea of trying to parent a teenager (who isn't all that much younger than myself) that probably already has a lot of emotional baggage is absolutely terrifying. It's certainly a whole different challenge than a baby, and that's scary enough. I think I could get myself up to the challenge, though.

Maybe this was what I was supposed to keep my eyes open for, and maybe not, but it does seem to be very timely in that regard.