Never Say Never

There are so many things I said I would NEVER do. There are so many things I said I would NEVER have. I am sure there were even more "nerve's" before I got married and had kids, but that seems like forever ago.

Shortly (5 days) after Matt and I got married he left for basic training. A few months into it he called with information about where his first duty station would be. I was thinking somewhere South, but was completely unprepared for the words that came out of his mouth. "I am going to be stationed in South Korea." My response was "I am NOT going to live in S. Korea. Matt's response to that, "well, that's good because it is an unaccompanied tour which means you can't go." A month after he let Korea, I was on a plane to Korea. Never say Never.



When Matt and I got married obviously one of the things we talked about repeatedly was the number of kids we wanted to have. I was good with two, one boy, one girl. After Emma came along I was excited that I had my one girl and one boy (I did still dream about my daughter in China). I remember seeing large families out and about and thinking why in the world would anyone want that many kids? How did they afford that many kids? There house must be huge with a family that size. Could they even afford to take their kids to Disney, because in my mind (at the time), every kid needed to go to Disney, they needed to wear name brand clothes, etc. Nope, not gonna have more than 2 kids.

When Emma was 2 I got pregnant with Gabe. Matt and I were really excited about adding ONE more to our family. We were certain that this was going to be it. We were done after this. Three was enough and probably more than we could really afford. We prayed for a healthy baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes, the sex didn't really matter since we already had one of each.

You all know the story from there. Mylee came home in May of 2008, Drew and Jaxon in May of 2010, and Keliah will hopefully join our family this coming fall. In three years we have gone from a family of 4, to a family of 7 (almost). Never say Never.



One of the other things I said I would NEVER do is drive a mini van, and there was absolutely NO WAY I was going to drive one of those big, humongous vans. We had an eight passenger conversion van when I was growing up and there was no way I was going to drive one of those things around. Nope, no gonna happen.

Last night we went from this...



to this...




It was definitely time. We knew it was coming and had been putting it off for some time, but now with Keliah only months from coming home, we needed to get a van that would fit all of us. So, we went from a mini van to this 12 passenger monstrosity. We have been looking for one in our price range for about 6 months, so when we learned about this one, we moved quickly because these vans are not easy to find (well, without paying $30,000). Once again, never say never.

The kids were so excited when they saw up pull in. We came home to get them and take them for ice cream because we knew they were going to want a ride. Drew came running out saying "whooohooo, yippeee, now we can all go to the lake." (We were driving two cars before) They have already staked out their seats. It is definitely going to take a bit of getting used to, but it is such a relief to finally have that decision making process over.

And as for the Never say Never, I would drive a bus if it meant that there would be no more children without homes, because NEVER is just a word, and families are forever.