Tag: Travel

Adventure with Engagement AWE · Family travel · Hope · Motherhood

A wonderful gift waiting for us in China!

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Molly could be weighed against feathers.

She is so little for all the machines surrounding in the burn hospital, giving and taking.

China ward
Shanghai General Hospital , China

She had suffered through God knows how many surgeries, not to mention the endless skin-graphs.

Did I tell you we met her in China at the burn hospital in Bejing?

So many children, so little time!

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Molly

You know the feeling of wanting to take them home with us in.

We brought a big white stuffed dog for Molly.

 

When our Tyler bent down eye-to-eye with Molly he gave her his high-beam smile (a wonderful gift in itself); then, he took the big dog out of it’s red package and handed it to her.

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Tyler

We were all happy-surprised when she reached out on her own to take it from Tyler.

She turned to her mother and hugged her with her dog between them.

Every door in my heart blew open.

I was full of love for Molly, but I had some questions. 

When she leaves here will she be stroller’d out into the great outdoors?

As she grows, will she pedal down neighborhood streets on her two-wheeler? 

Will the other children accept her?

Will she swing around the pole of parking meters?

When she sleeps will she reach out for stars?

I look at her mother and remembered every emotion rocking her heart.

All I want to do is to sweep Molly up and rock her for a solid month-and-a-half.

dawn

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Encouragement · Friendship · Perfecting Dysfunction · Relationship · Travel

If it is to be, it is up to me

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The theme of my life used to be, “If you want a job done right, do it yourself.”images-2

And if I’m honest, and I am, it’s still mostly the theme of my life. 

You get what I’m saying, right?

When I think about all my years of mothering, I realize that most of it was on me.

In other words, partner or no partner, life is a ‘’Do it yourself.’’

So, what in the heck am I doing pushing all of us to make this “important’’ move from “I” to “We”?

Is it even workable in a mother’s life?

Most of us want a partner who’s really a partner.

That means moving from “I” to “We”.

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Which necessitates moving from “I” to “We”.

But I hesitate to say that because it might turn into one more thing on our ‘to-do’ list.

Then I remember we are traveling together on this Adventure, and the way I look at it, there’s no mountain we can’t climb.

Look. download

Here’s what I know for sure.

Not even Jesus could “do it himself.”

He had to find 12 friends.

dawn

 

These are my thoughts today. Is there anything–dreams, thoughts, adventures–that we share today?

Daily IG @dawnraymondhirn

 

Encouragement · Family · Family travel · Relationship · Travel

Confession

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Diving Heart-first into the Adventure from “I” to “we,” I had to stop reading about everybody else’s Adventure and remember that we’re on an Adventure ourselves. (It’s not too late).

Before we go on, I have a confession to make:

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Ryan ’94

I never really wanted kids in the first place.

I figured they’d just get in the way of everything that matters most to me.

But somewhere along the way, this ‘loner’ changed her mind.

Which led to Ron and I talking about family, children, and our future and found that we were on the very same page.

The birth of our first son, Ryan, was the most life-changing event of my life.

I learned that family relationships were paramount. But you probably already know that.

So, three children later, we packed up the boys and went on a 6-month around-the-world Adventure. And I saw immediately that they weren’t ‘in the way’ like I thought.

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I was wrong.

They were the way.

A blind man could see that the value of our time with our children took us down a whole new, and necessary, path of Adventure.

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St. Petersburg, Russia new family

On top of that, we found brothers and sisters we’d never met before, and it was our children who introduced them to us.

We were so much larger than just 1 family.

We are worldwide.

We are the universal family of God.

Colors of India
Our new Indian friends in Agra, India

dawn

(We’ve started on our new Adventure together like we talked about last week, and I swear to you that it won’t be the same, for me, if you don’t come along.)

These are my thoughts today. Is there anything–dreams, thoughts or adventures–that I’ve missed?

 

Encouragement · Friendship · sisterhood · Travel

On the Road again…

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Do you remember the first time you left your childhood home and moved everything somewhere else? We’ve all done it. This isn’t your first  “Road of Life Adventure.”

woman suitcase.jpg

I found that there are 2 kinds of travelers, those who are ‘leaving’ somewhere and others who are ‘going’ somewhere.

I’ve done both.

When I think about my first Move at 19–Georgia to New York City–I see now it was more like ‘leaving’ my home and my family; answering to no one–and giving myself endless permissions.

Now, for my next Move, I wasn’t ‘leaving’ anywhere, I was ‘going’ to Europe.

It’s not that I was ’leaving’ the USA, I was running toward my first big finish line.

And it was big, kind of like your first kiss.

But this is bigger than that.

We are accepting all the risks that come from being a stranger in a strange land.

Which is more typical of you, ‘leaving’ something or ‘going’ toward the finish line?

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me, at 19, backpacking Europe

Like I said, I understand both. I’ve done my share of running away.

You’ve got a week to think about it. I’ll do the same.

dawn

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