Thankful Thursday | My Little Sister

Wow... three posts in one week.  And it's only Thursday!  Who knows what will happen next!  I've been trying to get better with blogging more consistently but sometimes it's just hard to come up with ideas when I don't have sessions ready to post yet.  Several bloggers and photographers have talked about planning out the month with blog posts to do and I LOVE this idea.  Now if I could  just sit down and do it :-)

This morning as I was getting ready I was thinking through images I had that I could post and with it being Thursday, it made me think of Thankful Thursday that I've seen other put in their statuses on Facebook.  But why not use it on the blog??  It won't be a weekly post, but more of an every-now-and-then post.  Kind of like Fabulous Friday :-)

And really, this topic could last a while because Lord knows there are SO many people in my life that I am so thankful for.  If I put them all in one post, your mouse batteries would die from scrolling long before you got to the bottom of the page.  So, I'll spare you all (and your mouses) and simply be thankful (on the blog) for one person at a time.

This time 8 years ago, I was living in Brussels, Belgium.  We were simply being teased by the idea of warm weather, but it wasn't freezing like it had been in January. My friend (who was my maid of honor), Arica and I had already been to several countries and with May right around the corner, I was already thinking about packing up to move back home.  Crazy.  By this time, I'd already grown close to the Greens and their two kids, Christen (who those of us close to them know as Sissi) and Brandon.

That fall, Sissi came over to the states to attend the University of South Carolina (I've forgiven her, don't worry) and was living an ocean away from her family. I think it was that year that we started growing closer... to me, she was already a little sister and I wanted to take her to dinner and give her a place to stay outside of Columbia and let her know that even though she was across the Atlantic from her family, I knew the life she had come from and a little bit of where she currently was.  I almost feel like we were a bit of comfort for each other at times because while I hadn't grown up in Europe, I had been there several times and lived there for a bit so it was almost like Sissi and I understood each other in a way that no one else around us could.  And I'm so thankful for that.

Another thing I love about Sissi is her intense passion for fashion (didn't know I was a master at rhymes, did you?). Sundays in Brussels were "family night" at the Green's house.  Sometimes this meant games with friends from church (which is a whole other story!) and sometimes it just meant Arica and I hanging out with the Greens while we ate Belgium waffles and watched a movie.  It was those nights that Sis would come downstairs with a STACK of In Style magazines and a notebook to take notes for her own wardrobe.  And now?  She's not working in the fashion industry (although she could!), but her outlet can be seen on her blog.  We did a fashion shoot several years ago and I can. not. wait. to do another one with her!  

When it came time to ask my friends to stand by my side as my bridesmaids, I had no doubt in my mind that Sissi would stand up there with me... as well as read some of 1 Corinthians 13 in French :-)  When I came home from Brussles and walked with her through some of her freshman year of college (and my first year in the working world), she helped me process and figure out who I was, where I stood with my faith, and how in the world I could dress better! :-)

Sis... you are gorgeous... inside and out. And I don't know if I've ever told you or not, but I'm so incredibly thankful for you.  Thank you for accepting me into your family when I moved to Brussels, thank you for graciously helping me adjust to a different culture while suffering from the most horrendous jet-lag ever, and thank you for allowing me into your life, even when it's hard to talk about things.  I love you dearly and if God had left it up to me, I would have been so proud and overjoyed to have you as an actual sister.