I've landed the most amazing friends. I have these incredible people about me, who remember the important things from my past just as well (in some cases, better...) than I remember them... (Thank you, Erin. Gosh, I miss you!)

How did I nearly forget that just one year ago this happened? It's a story I've told ten times tenfold, each time I'm asked why (and I'm asked frequently), with two little boys already at home, didn't we ask for a baby girl from Korea? It was a decision that I'd been struggling with the week before our 2008 W.O.W. It was something that Dave, on the other hand, felt very strongly about.

So many things lead us s t r a i g h t to Rubin.

I love to think about the fact that last year, as I played and ate and snuggled and prayed with my female relatives beside Loon Lake, my 3-month-old baby boy lived at the Baby Reception Home in Han Suh Hospital, attached to SWS in Seoul. I couldn't help but think about how I was expecting him last fall as I looked at my cousin Carolyn this past weekend...

...expecting her first baby in April. She's just about as close to meeting her little one as I was to meeting Rubin at last year's W.O.W. Both of us expecting babies, in such different ways.

I can't believe how quickly time passes.

As for my family, we celebrated life this past weekend as we have for the past 7 years. We marveled at the miracle of pregnancy, and the joy of becoming a first time mother, aunt, and grandmother.

We joined forces and shook our fists at cancer: at battles fought and won...

...and at a war that wages on.

We cracked books in preparation for first exams of the year in undergraduate and law school careers.

We anticipated future weddings, in November and then June and then November, once again.

We caught up.

We looked forward.

We looked back.

And not in absolute harmony, not without some discord.

No, we are not perfect, except for in our pride... a trait that I think most of us have inherited genetically.

As each year passes, I step away from the weekend with a prayer in my heart, dually thanking God for these women I'm able to call my family, and asking Him to help us be better than we were the year before. Better wives and sisters and mothers, yes. And better friends to each other, as sometimes it's easiest to hurt the ones we should be loving the most.

We may not have it all together. But together, we have it all.