One Year Later . . . Wow.

If you want to re-read some honest first impressions of where we live, then you've got to read
this and this and this as well.

     After reading those first impressions of this city, I find the situation we live in so humorous. Why you might ask? Because those first impressions have become the reality we live in! Nothing has changed, we have just adapted! How too too funny.

People still drive badly and now we too drive badly. Drug dealers still hang out on our corner, but we kind of eye each other and just leave each other alone. I am still cautious when I take my kids outside, but I'm not as terrified that some random person is going to come up and hurt my kids or I.

  I have come to see so much good in the people around us in our neighborhood, even in strangers. I find people at least once a week who connect with my kids and I at the store, on the street, or in our building and who help my kids and I to be friendlier and kinder to those we pass on the "street" outside our building. It brightens my day to see a random person smiling and waving at little Bronwyn who always has a quick smile and friendly wave for any person who walks in our path. She has become a great example to me of how just reaching out and smiling can brighten another persons day.

It's amazing to me how much we have grown and learned in a year. It's amazing to look at Aftyn and Bronwyn and think of where they were a year ago. Bronwyn is saying so many things, and Aftyn is now in primary and starting to learn to read! We have all become accustomed to a totally new way of life. We have become accustomed to living in a tiny apartment with people from all walks of life living right down the hall. We have learned compassion, tolerance, patience, long-suffering and faith while living here.  I have become a better seamstress while living here. Aftyn got her first cavities while living here. We experienced our first Hurricane scare. The girls got to go to the beach for the first time while living here. We went to New York. We have had an amazing amazing past year and I wouldn't change a thing because although there have been many things we have experienced that weren't fun, in the long run we were taught or learned a valuable lesson and we can now use the knowledge that we gained. I really do see how Heavenly Father has shaped us and changed us over the past year and I truly am grateful for those changes in my life and in my family's life.

Here's to the next year!! :) Bring on the adventures!

This was taken about a year ago. Oh how I love these girls. 

This Christmas of  '12