Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année

Well it has been quite sometime since I have written on this blog.
I have probably lost most of my readers. I probably will still have to remind even my parents that I still have a blog. Which actually brings me to what I was thinking about that prompted me to write.
My whole family came in town for Christmas. My sister came a week before the rest on the 17th. It was so good to have her with me. I hadn't seen her in months. We decided to take a trip to Belgium because neither of us had ever been before. I booked a hotel in Brussels (at least what I thought was Brussels) and we left from Paris Gare du Nord. It is only a little over an hour and half to Brussels from Paris on the bullet train. When we arrived, we got in a cab and asked the driver to take us to the Ibis I had booked online. 60 euros later we arrived in Leuven about 20 kilometers outside of Brussels. Little did I know while booking the reservation that the Ibis website directed me here because all the hotels in Brussels were booked. Had I paid a little more attention I would have realized that. Regardless, we were in Belgium. The next day we took a 4 euro train ride back to Brussels. We celebrated that night in Leuven my acceptance into Princeton Seminary. It was a nice trip and I was quite excited about my acceptance.
Jamie and I returned to Paris after a couple of days in Belgium and waited the arrival of the rest of the family. Our entourage as a family is growing. My sister's boyfriend came and my brother's girlfriend also came. Its about time I find a girl to take to family events.
We stayed in a nice 4 room apartment in Paris. It was tight, for 7, but it was nice to be in close quarters with my family for the first time in months. It was just nice, it was an oasis. I have learned so much living the solitary life that I do here. Being in all of there presence was so much sweeter for the time we spent apart. There departure was almost as bitter as the sweetness of their stay. This isn't to say that everything went smoothly, but for a Kim trip I would say it went really smoothly.
As I grow older, I want to be with my family so much more, especially after having lived in a foreign country for several months. It has been a tough couple of days since they have been gone. That is all it has been too. Just two days since they have left but its been difficult. I tried to go to the south of France to snowboard today, but my first attempt proved futile. I am trying again tomorrow.
I feel so much more comfortable when I am with my family traveling. I can rely on my mom and dad to make decisions. Or, at the very least, I just have to give my opinion. I don't make the final decisions. Living alone, you make all the decisions. Good bad or otherwise, you are the final authority. There is no consultation. You have to make the decision and encourage yourself that you made the right decision. At least, as of yet, I don't have to worry about anyone else. I am learning to do it by myself without having to worry about how it will effect others. It just effects me. Thoughts of having my own family come and go. Sometimes, I am certain that I don't want kids or a family. I like my life by myself. But, when it comes down to it, I hope someday, I will be making decisions with my wife and we will both bear the responsibility of how it effects our children. I am learning to do it on my own. In time, once I have learned to do it on my own, I will be more confident in leading a family because I have made the mistakes already and will know either how to respond to those mistakes or just not make them in the first place. Maybe that is not what God has in store for me, but I have faith that either way, God knows what He is doing. The best I can do is respond and live the life that is under me.