If you are throwing or going to a New Year’s Eve Party and need an easy {and intentional} party game, or if you are with your family during New Year’s Day and want a simple activity to reflect on the past year, here’s an easy idea– no odd supplies, crafty-skill, or hours of dedication required, [...]
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Merry Christmas, Friends. Thanks for journeying with our family, for entering conversations here, and for supporting us in a million different ways this past year. We hope your holiday season is full of rich, take-your-breath-away-good-kind-of moments. We hope, too, that the gift of the King-who-came-down truly overshadows everything, everything, else. Happy Holidays, ya’ll. And we’ll [...]
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If you are a last-minute kind of person who needs a super simple idea for making the Christmas season more intentional with your kids this year, even 4 days before the big day, consider this: “{# of Days Left Before Christmas} Days of Holiday Cheer” 1. Declare the Tradition. Insert however many days you have left [...]
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As the holidays approach, thoughts of my family back home are never far from my mind. Special occasions rub the reality of living far away from home a bit raw this time of year. In light of that, I thought it appropriate to re-post this article I wrote last December. I reckon in many ways, [...]
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So you are slammed with making cookies for the kid’s class party and ordering that present for your mom and wrapping up that project at work, and, geez, it’s already mid-December. And your last-minute to-do list grows longer than your 3 year-old’s wish list for Santa. I get it. This is a pyscho time of [...]
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I posted this vlog about struggling with guilt at Christmas last year for another site, but thought it worth a second look. Ya know, because it’s the holidays and all. . . **************** What is the biggest thing you struggle with during the holiday season, in general? During THIS holiday season, in particular? Go ahead, [...]
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This Thanksgiving, regardless of where you break bread or cut turkey, may gratitude be the underlying current of your day. May you be thankful for the work that busies your hands. And whether it’s washing dishes or changing diapers, shuffling papers or selling cars, fixing or teaching or raising, may you find joy in your [...]
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For my American friends who read here and will celebrate a national holiday tomorrow . . . May your Fourth of July be spent in crazy-fun celebration this year. May you eat corn on the cob and apple pie till you feel sick and May you watch and wonder at fireworks somewhere– even if only on [...]
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To all the mothers who exclaim, “They’re gorgeous!” even though they’re far from a dozen-red, To those women who take from pudgy, happy hands gifts from an unmowed patch of lawn, And reach down the glass vase– the special one, And display on table-top or at sink-side, The love-offerings of childhood. To all mothers, who [...]
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Easter means girls with patent leather shoes under spring-colored dresses, being shushed beside slicked-headed boys with clip-on ties. Easter is daffodils showing their yellow faces after a long sleep under soil, and it’s those Bradford Pears blooming like mad in the front yard after a winter of barren branch. It means a dinner with the [...]
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Throughout Thailand we witness the Abandoned. We see apartment complexes without inner walls looming above the city block, and we stumble upon entire resorts in rice fields that almost were. Because, like in so many countries, when the funding for a building project runs out, the building stops. And then the half-finished begins to decay [...]
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ALifeOverseas.com / LauraParkerBlog.com.
My family is living overseas in Thailand, where my husband is directing a Christian Humanitarian Foundation. This blog is the honest recording of our journey– squatty potties and all. 
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Destined Traveler.
Mentoring Young Adults, Hosting Teams, Educating about Human Trafficking.
