OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: june2017

OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Alyssa's Graduation and Birthday

Alyssa was technically finished with high school last year early, but she had her official graduation along with her 18th birthday this year. We had a celebration for both. Here are a few shots of our day.

Hunter liked the balloon strings!

The cake says Happy Birthday and Graduation Alyssa

A friend smoked pulled pork for our main dish; here was the cold food table.

I made a simple wall of Alyssa pictures through the years.

Alyssa had two friends come down from NY for her party - she met Raven on a mission trip to Africa and has visited her family in the Virgin Islands, where they live part of the year, twice.

The beginning group gathering -

JD and Moriah

The goats came out to hang with the kids and eat weeds for a bit.

Fiona enjoyed the attention

These are my friend's girls from Liberia; they got a picture with my Ethiopians because they were all wearing butterfly shirts.

Alyssa with Caleb, who was a neighbor when we lived in "the neighborhood" back from Alyssa's age of 3-6!

We got Alyssa a hand-made cedar chest -

It was a wonderful day.

Jenny

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Sharks 2017

Another swim season has arrived - I have lost count but we are roughly at 14 years of swimming (with two years "vacation" at different points). Swimming really is my favorite sport, as all kids compete in the same meet on the same night at the same pool; it also makes it fun that we have a family reputation for being fast.

This was James' only meet this year as he is heading to the Bible College in CA on Saturday for their summer program.

The kids seem to excel at the goofy pictures -

Last year at the end of the year award ceremony, the Sharks created an award for Tori called "The Beast Award". She is absolutely amazing to watch and we will really have to consider if she wants to transition to year around competition at some point. Last night, Elijah proved that he is going to give Tori a run for her beast award as he and his relay team beat the all time Shark record by 9 seconds. This is Sharks 52nd year and the 20th year with our fabulous head couch.

Here's Elijah on the far left and his relay team -