Inspired...

I've had a lot of time on my hands this week. Four whole days off with no kids.  I've cleaned, I've organized, I've de-cluttered.  But, I've also watched far too much tv.  Oh well, it's vacation.  I've learned there's not too much on tv during the middle of the day but CMT is notorious for having marathons of "Extreme Makeover Home Edition".  That show is a real tear-jerker.  Yesterday, Ty and his crew built a house for the Beach Family.  They were a family of 15 all living in a trailer because their home had been destroyed by Hurrican Ike.  The thing that really got me was that 9 of their 13 children had been adopted out of the foster care system.  They were only 40 years old and had already fostered 85 children!  So, in true Extreme Makeover fashion, they built them a gigantic house (around 5500 square feet) in a week while they sent the family away to Disney World.  Sometimes I  think this show is a little over the top.  I mean, who really needs a house that big and fancy? But, I think this family deserved it.  One of the designers on the show described the family as something "out of a fairy tale".  That made me chuckle.  I am 100 percent sure that their life has not been a fairy tale.  I'm sure it's been hard.  I'm sure it's been heartbreaking.  I'm sure there kids have whined and yelled and come from really bad backgrounds.  But the inspiring thing is, even though it's nowhere close to being a fairy tale, the Beach family keeps loving on kids.  In fact, I Googled the family after the show was over and found that they had adopted 4 more special needs kids after the show aired because now they had all that space!  I couldn't help but be inspired by this family. Chris and I have learned so much in 5 months of doing foster care but we know we have so much more to learn.  We look forward to providing many children with homes and maybe adopting a few ourselves (but we will not be adopting 13...I can tell you that right now...unless of course Ty Pennington wants to build us a mansion too!).

Oh, one other thing that inspired me about the show.  You may know that we are taking the boys to DisneyWorld next week.  Well, we figure if the Beach family can handle it with 13 kids, we can handle it with 2?  Ok, well you still may want to say a prayer for us...