So here’s another update for the Hanks household. So much has happened. Where do I start? Well, we got moved into our new house. It was such a whirlwind. My old house sold on March 27 (closed on April 10) and I was in my new house on April 11. We love the new house and all of the space. The back yard is an oasis. We spend a lot of time out there playing. The community has many parks, a water park, swimming pools, fishing ponds, golf, etc. We have lots to do to keep a 4 year old busy.

Zoey turned 4 yesterday – but we celebrated her birthday over the weekend. We had the family at the house for a cook-out, and for her friends – it was Peter Piper Pizza. That was awesome as I had no clean-up. And, Zoey loved it. Of course the party was all Dora. She is loving Dora these days.

I took some time off in March and April --- just to get caught up and get some thinking out of the way. It came at a great time – as the house sold. Anyway, I decided to have surgery done for a life-long problem and went into surgery on Tuesday of this week. I am healing fine and feel good right now. Zoey is with my parents. I go back to work on Wednesday of next week.

Also, during that time – I decided to have a foreign exchange student come live with us for a year. So, on August 15 – Jasmin from Finland will be moving in. Zoey is so excited. Except periodically she gets confused as she has a friend at school named Jasmine and she thinks she is coming to live with us.

I want to adopt again – but right now Ukraine is closed to me. Russia is too expensive (though still my main option) since I just laid out all my cash getting moved in. The house didn’t need many changes to make it feel like mine – but I had to have wood floors installed where there was tile. It was a huge area of white tile and after a few weeks – I couldn’t stand how dirty they got. The wood floors were finished on Tuesday of this week and they are beautiful. We are home.

That's our update for now. Stay tuned. I will have a teenager living with me in 2 and a half short months.