I am smiling today.  My nieces have re-captured my heart.  :)
Went and had coffee with my family today.  We were loud.  we spilled drinks.  Isaac fell off of a bike rack and landed on his head.  He cried.  Abigail cried.  We all gasped and chairs went flying everywhere as we tried to rush over to him.  haha... my family is so fun.
*deep breath*  We are in our 20th week of training.  6 more to go.  I feel (like a friend said) that I am in auto pilot.  I don't feel anything.  I'm tired.  Ready to move on.  I feel like I have absorbed as much teaching as I possibly can.  I know it is important to be as committed and diligent now as I was when we first started. But, it's being really hard on it.  Bottom line:  I have a bad attitude.
It is so easy to get so wrapped up in the doing of things that you forget all the reasons why you started doing them to begin with.  It is so easy to lose the perspective of: "I'm doing this because the Lord told me to, and so I am doing it 'as unto Him' and switch to: "I am going through the motions of doing what I'm have to do.  I am just going to skim by and give it the bare minimum."
John and I were talking the other night about the purpose behind what we do.  Whether it's your job, or getting married, or raising children or going through the training program, or going overseas.  If it doesn't have the right purpose behind it, it is worthless.  It's so true.  I can go out and do good and right things, but, when I check the motivation behind it all... it is often soooo lacking.  It was a pretty thought provoking question.  So, what is driving me?  What is the purpose, the motivation behind my goals?  Am I just pursuing things because it is what I want?  Or am I pursuing what His plans are for me?  I would hate to pursue all my desires only to realize that they are empty, worthless and unfulfilling apart from Him.  Even the things that are good and right.