Family ~ Blessing or Bitter?

On almost a daily basis I am amazed at what a blessing family can be. Jake and I have been blessed with "goodly parents", as Nephi put it. We have great parents in Utah who always have their door and arms open to us. They have come to the understanding that our means of having children, is not the most conventional, however, they support us completely and continue to see how the process is going and offer encouragement. We are also blessed to have great parents in California (unbelievably close to us), who open their doors and pull out dining table chairs for us on almost a daily basis. We share many meals, multiple inside jokes, and get together many times a week, and we (all of us) love every minute of it. They too have been extremely supportive of out pursuit for adoption. For both our parents' support, we are so very grateful.

We both have siblings whom we love dearly. Some we are closer to than others. Some share our values, more than others. I have one brother and one sister, both older than I. If you take into account the blended families Jake comes from, he has four brothers and one sister. Some are from his mom and father's marriage. One from his dad and his first wife's marriage. One from his mom and dad's marriage. One from his father's second marriage and one from his father's third wife's previous marriage. I know, tough to keep up.....but we do and we love them all. We don't always get along.....as most siblings....but we still love them.

Thanks to those brothers and sisters, we have many nieces and nephews, whom we absolutely love and adore....and who to some extent have been our attempt to begin somewhat parenting techniques, at I'm sure to some misfortune to them. We love them and relish all the time we get to spend with them. Just to note.....thank goodness for cell phone plans with UNLIMITED texting.....very handy w/ teen aged nieces. :)

In addition to the family we are born with or married into, out of, or have parents changing marriages, we have our wonderful "friemily"........those are the friends you choose who become family. We have great friemily who are also incredibly supportive of our adventure in adoption. Basically our very vest friemily simply has too much dirt on us, and we have dirt on her, that it might be detrimental if we ever "split".....imagine if your best friemily becomes your worst enemy.......imagine the amount of blackmail they would have. Lucky for us, it goes both ways. LOL

Unfortunately, not only have we experienced the blessing of family and friemily, but also the bitterness of them as well. Fortunately, the good has out weighed the bitter and we are truly blessed to have the family and friemily we have and the wonderful support system they provide is unmatched.

Thank you all for your love and support. We consider all of you a blessing.

So now I ask you, the reader, which do you have.....a blessing or a bitterness?? Think about it and if you have cause to, say thank you.