A Very Special Day

Today is my daughter's birthday.  She's 19 now!  Wow!  Where has the time gone?

Looking back over the years, I'm so thankful for the bonds that we've forged and pray that they will always stay strong.  She's become such a lovely woman both inside and out.  This past year she's been forging ahead into new areas of her life with a nannying job, caring for 5 children and helping out a bit with their homeschooling.  Her earnings will help with college expenses and the experiences she's gained will last her a lifetime.  She's also been spending a few hours each week with a Korean family reading and singing with their little boys so they can hear english from a native tongue.  It's been so much fun for her and the boys are very eager to teach her about Korean customs and language, too.  In addition, she has been helping a lady with some light housekeeping but lately has been so busy that she hasn't been able to go very often.
There are some things she needs to do to prepare for college and some courses she'd like to CLEP in order to reduce her college costs and time by applying what she's already learned for college credit.

She's met a nice, young man who is VERY interested in getting to know her better and has been pursuing a long distance, courtship relationship with definite goals in mind.  Through all the trials and errors that accompany that type of relationship, they seem to have reached a point where they really need to spend some normal I-live-in-the-same-town time and they can hang out like traditional couples.  Perhaps this summer will provide some opportunites for them to do that. 

It's been such a joy to raise my children and watch them turn into wonderful, godly young ladies.  They share my love of outdoors and my somewhat tomboyish nature.  But I think it has helped to make them stronger both physically and spiritually.  By homeschooling them, we're been able to cover the requirements and go off on tangents to study things that interest them. 
As a result, she's spent time as an intern on a local sustainable farm, participated in mission activities, pursued her interest in drama by participating in our community theater and church drama from stage to costuming and props and reenactments from creating costumes to setting up camp and cooking over a fire.  She's given demonstrations to groups of homeschool and private school students, developed her artistic talents, learned to knit, sew, garden, attended naturalist classes at one of our local state parks, learned to make herbal remedies, soap, cheese, wine and a host of other skills that will help her to raise a healthy family.  She has a lovely singing voice and has taken violin lessons as well as tinkered with cello and her dulcimer.  I've yet to see her sit down for any length of time without having something in her hand to work on...knitting, sketching, beading, weaving on her inkle loom, designing clothing.......right now she's working on weaving a basket!
Through all our sustainable learning, she's become quite a green individual, striving to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as she can.  
All in all, I'd say she's a very well rounded, spiritually sound, young lady who is capable of handling the next phases of her life...except maybe the young man!   I think he has his work cut out for him! :)