This morning (or was it yesterday morning?), snowflakes were seesawing down on my hair–and there I was wearing sandals. I kissed my family goodbye and loaded myself and an overstuffed hiking backpack into a friend’s Prius.

And so began my two-week trip to Asia (via plane, not Prius). After about seven years of not really being together, spread out all over the world, my sisters and I are converging in Thailand to celebrate a big birthday of my youngest sister’s. She works with migrants, and she and her husband are treading through the adoption process. I get a kick out of bragging on the two of them because their work is long, slow, hard, terribly important, and literally stuffed with blood, sweat, and tears. read more