It's A Wonderful Life

Like just about everyone in the world, we had our lives interrupted due to COVID-19.  We were really getting into a good groove with our life in Tonga. We acclimated to the heat and humidity, we made some good friends, we were making progress on our living situation, had some fun on awesome beaches and we even learned how to shred fresh coconut!  This photo is the prettiest place in Tonga! We didn't provide any updates on our blog while in Tonga because, first of all, we were trying to slow life down and simplify things, but a very slow internet connection with limited data helped us stick to that plan. Now we are posting this update from the island of Oahu, Hawaii. This is Olivia on the deck of our rental house with the landlord's gift basket of the two main food groups in Hawaii...chocolate covered macadamia nuts and pineapple! We are currently under a 14 day quarantine for any travelers arriving to the state...so we have plenty of time to catch up ...

This beautiful girl is one of the newest citizens of the United States! Her citizenship approval is actually part of our journey to take our family to Tonga in about 10 days.  Early last year, Deanne felt very impressed to get passports for all our children.  There were no immediate plans to travel out of the country. Why spend over $1,000 on passports with no specific travel plans?? Because she just had a feeling that it needed to be done.  I learned long ago that we go with Deanne's feelings.     Most of the other children's passport applications came back without a hitch.  Olivia's was delayed.  At the same time we applied for a Certificate of Citizenship to the USCIS. Getting a passport or the Certificate of Citizenship would declare her a citizen. Last February we applied for both hoping the documents we had were enough. Then came a phone call from the Department of State, who issues passports, from the agent requesting mo...

A few weeks ago, Deanne and I went to preview the land of Tonga before we bring the kids back later this month. What an incredible place with incredible people!  We met some very generous friends on the beach who shared their fresh seafood dinner with us. Sea urchin just doesn't get any fresher than this!!  Not that we have had sea urchin before to compare...  Fabulous blow holes... Fresh coconut juice... Freshly picked papaya for breakfast.... Sunsets on the beach that is a 5 minute walk from the property we are leasing...  Then we came home to this.  Like we needed any more convincing to go back!  

We are back from a 4 year hiatus from this blog.  We have felt very strongly that we need to get this updated and keep it going.  You can catch up on some of our happenings on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/deanne.walker.5621 . We updated our family picture, which is outdated again.  We have added 2 wonderful daughters through marriage.  2 more grandchildren and there are 2 more in the oven.  By September we will have 12 grandchildren. We are still in Missouri. We have 21 children now. We just adopted our most recent little boy this year.  He turned 3 in December and it has been a huge adjustment for us. You've heard the term "baby-proofing your house", but 3-year-old-proofing your house is a much bigger task! Our son, Pierce, recently returned from a mission for our church in October.  He spent 2 years in Thailand teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and loved every minute of it.  He is actually now engaged to a beautiful gir...