The Color Run

 Obviously with our trip to Ethiopia in only a few days, we have a ton to do, but Alei and I did take a moment to come up with a theme for our running group at the Color Run - COWS. My mother scored on a swell assortment of cow t-shirts at an estate sale and I had more than enough cow shirts for our running party. My shirt also had a fine view of the cows udders on the back, which I thought would be appreciated by all the people forced to run behind me. I realize this is a horrible picture, but Alei and I  were really cracking ourselves up late the night before the run.

 There were 6,000 people at the 5K and we were in one of the last heats, due to the fact that we didn't see the long line of port-a-potties and waited in the Subway bathroom line for a full 30 minutes when the race was due to begin.

This is just proof that we had fun - 

The Finish Line - I did run the majority of the race.

I want to do another 5k soon, but I'm pretty sure most of them aren't going to be as fun as this one.

The Final Weekend

 This is our last weekend before we leave for Ethiopia, so we are trying to accomplish an assortment of odd jobs. Yesterday, while we enjoyed our visit with Jason (nephew and cousin), we also chopped the last of the apple making applesauce. All together we canned 75 pounds and it amounted to about 26 quarts. James and Ben were awesome help chopping this year!

The smell of baking apples is one of my favorite.

While we were at it, we whipped up a batch of cookies and some loaves of bread.

So, I get so mad at myself when I forget to get the pictures that really matter - like Jason's face! Here he is with the child herd setting out on a hike to the beaver dam that is now all dried up. It was a large, thriving beaver dam when we moved in about eight years ago.

Elijah was pretty excited to be included on the big kid adventure. He suggested to Jason that they call it the beaver jam instead of the beaver dam.

Tomorrow Alei and I are running The Color Run 5K in Washington DC. Before you are even remotely impressed, please know that neither of us have ever run three miles in our life! I have run two miles a few times now, so I'm hoping to push myself through it. It will be an adventure either way. There are six of us going that are all running, so I don't know how we will even get any pictures; which is a shame because the idea of The Color Run is that they throw colors on you as you run. (Who comes up with this stuff...and who pays to participate?)

Getting Ready

 I have every day before we leave for Ethiopia, next Friday, chalked full. Most of it is just life related, more than Africa related, but it is a rather demanding schedule. Strangely, I am home alone this morning because JD took all the boys to a museum that they have been wanting to visit before Gabriel's departure and Alyssa went to another museum the opposite direction with her Classical Conversations class. To spice things up, JD's nephew is coming into town tonight and my brother is arriving at my sister's tomorrow and our house on Sunday. Beyond that, Monday is Moriah's birthday and Gabriel's LAST night at home. He leaves for Boot Camp on Tuesday!! Other than all that, traveling for an adoption absolutely requires me to deep clean the house before I leave; I have always taken that nesting idea very seriously. Yesterday, my friend's daughter came and helped for the day and we got the majority of the basement done. Today I am moving upstairs and trying to conquer most of it. In reality, the cleaning isn't going to be nearly as deep as I hoped, but it will be to a level that I can cope with.

JD is busy building the chimney that is for the wood stove in the basement. We may actually be able to use it this year, although the stone looks like a big job! He has to complete the chimney coming through the porch before the flooring and ceiling of the porch can be completed. We also have a friend's son finishing the barn painting that we did about five years ago and never completed. 

JD brought home two little love-seats for our future seating area around the wood stove that I had to work into the down-stairs yesterday. Someday the pool table will move to the game-room, but I'm afraid that that may still be a few years away. 

In addition to my cleaning, organizing and packing, I still have about 65 pounds of apples that have to be turned into applesauce. I have only done one double session resulting in eight quart jars. I also have to tighten Julia's locs, which is probably a good four hour job.

It is all good and I am so excited that we are barely a week away from bringing our little girls home. We have gotten approval to make the trip out to see Brooke also, so that is extra exciting. It will be so fun to see Brooke's reaction to meeting two of her three big sisters!

Bread and Turkeys

I went away for the weekend to a woman's retreat that my husband set up and insisted I go. I really wanted to, but hadn't signed up since our travel dates were so up in the air. I also would not have gone if I had known how soon we leave, but it was all set up the day before I got Ethiopia travel dates...so I am assuming that was God wanting me to go. I am so, so thankful I went; the message was just what I needed to hear. JD went into super-mode setting it all up for me and handling the details of Moriah's birthday party on Saturday and Alyssa's donut sale on Sunday. Since I don't know all the girls that Moriah invited to the cook-out party, I assume some of their moms have to think I'm quit the loser not being at my own daughter's party, but my sister graciously was here to play the mother role. 

Alyssa's Sunday donut sale afforded Elijah the opportunity of acquiring this fabulous free hat. He has worn it all day. This morning he told the bus driver that he was a chef and going to bake her something. Since our wheat came in Friday, we made home-made bread together.

Elijah was anxious to start the bread but we had to make the bus run, pick up Saturday's mail, eat breakfast and get dressed. 

He wanted to do every step. Of course, he is good at dumping ingredients, but he did very well rolling out the bread dough!

He was slightly alarmed when it was rolling off the counter.

I showed him how to roll them into loaves; I did one and he did the other three. 

They turned out perfect.

While we were baking, Ben called that there were wild turkeys in the backyard. Sure enough, there were about 20. This picture is bad quality, but I was afraid to open the screen or I would scare them away.

 

My Life is Messy (but Tickets are Booked!)

 You know, my surroundings are generally pretty messy. I don't like it that way; I overall really enjoy organization...but I seem to be about the only one that does. Take for instance the coat closet (if you want to really feel good about yourself). Here is the sight that greeted me today -

Granted, it had not been "cleaned" all summer, but should it really have to be in the summer when no one is wearing coats? There is a crazy number of coats in there, but we do have a crazy number of people living here!

I was amused at my laundry piles for the day - check out the volume of shoes. Some were just given to us and some I'm washing to pass on, but it was still at least a dozen pairs of shoes to be washed. (Shoes, overall, are a constant messy problem at my front door!)

I decided we absolutely must start packing the piles that are waiting to go to Ethiopia. None of this is our personal packing, just all the orphanage donations that we are taking. I found out today that we can take three suitcases each, so that means I have several more bags that I can fill with back-packs to hand out to the orphans at West Sands School if anyone wants to donate them. I need a total of 220!

I actually spent all morning on the phone and computer booking FOUR round-trip tickets to Ethiopia, via Istanbul, Turkey, and TWO one-way child tickets for the trip back. We are leaving on Friday, October 26th!

Happy News

 We are celebrating around here, because Bella passed Embassy and the girls are ready to come home! Yesterday Gabriel got word that his departure moved up a full week, so now he leaves on the 23rd for boot camp and we are hoping to leave the 26th for Ethiopia.

The long wait is over; after almost five months, Mommy and Daddy are coming back for their girls.

 I can't wait to see their reaction; I wonder if they really understood that we would be back for them or they just thought that they had a Mom and Dad for a week once upon a time.

I will get final word on our Embassy dates in the morning and will book tickets to travel tomorrow!

On the Home Front

We are waiting to hear that Isabella passed the Embassy requirements; it has all taken longer than we hoped. In reality, it is slim hope that we could travel and be back for Gabriel's departure on October 29th for Boot Camp; we will probably not make travel plans until the next week - which happens to be November. Although we hoped to have Selah and Bella home as early as August, I decided in the beginning to not complain if they were home for Christmas. Not only are they going to be home for Christmas, they should be home in plenty of time for Thanksgiving as well. It is kind of bittersweet, since Gabriel will be home for neither this year.

While we wait, there is much to be done. I planned on deep-cleaning James and Ben's room while they were at home-school P.E. today, but I couldn't even walk in the room. So, I will deep-clean tomorrow, after they regular clean today. Elijah has been busy helping his Dad put in a chimney for the wood burning stove down-stairs. The chimney has to be built through the screened in porch before the ceiling and floor can be finished.

I am off to the chiropractor shortly; I desperately need it. 

Skating, Amish and Elijah

 We took the kids skating this week, since it was James' birthday request from last week. We basically had the place to ourselves and the kids had a really good time. Elijah is so much fun on family outings these days; he is always super excited and loves every minute of whatever we are doing. When we hit the counter to get our skates, he looked and me and yelled, "Ok, Mom, I need skates, how long do my feet weigh?"

Within minutes, he was ready to hit the floor - 

It wasn't quite easy as he had envisioned!

It was only the second time that Tori and Julia skated, but they both did very well. It was sweet how they helped each other (and occasionally knocked each other over.)

Elijah skated between several pairs of people and also ran laps around in his socks, which they amazingly allowed.

Today Elijah and I hit Amish country with a friend to get 100 pounds of apples for applesause, (because I obviously don't have enough to do before I board the plane for Ethiopia!)  We also found out about an Amish general store that I had never been to before. Elijah's current trend is to talk to anyone and everyone that he comes in contact with. He made friends with a little Amish boy in line at the grocery store, so felt free to watch them load their buggy while I loaded our car. Next thing I heard was Elijah tell the man that someday he was going to have a horse..."his mom said so". Then he paused and told the Amish gentleman, "except, when I get a horse, it isn't going to be an Amish horse...just a regular horse." The man just smiled. 

He Needs Me

 JD didn't realize it, but he desperately needed me to organize his office closet. I decided to take on that task last Friday. That morning, the boys and I unloaded the entire closet onto the dining room table. We then went to Walmart, bought boxes, and  I put things back in an organized, labeled manner. I left a few enormous piles on the floor that JD got to go through and purge when he got home from work - (he was super excited!)

We can actually find what we are looking for in there now. It didn't appear messy before, but was just in random order. 

 While this started out as JD's office, I have slowly assumed the majority of the paper work for our lives, so I decided to make it a bit more Jenny-friendly. The nice, big desk that houses the computer works wonderfully, but my second little desk was just too little to do much good. I always ended up doing medical bills, etc, all over the dining room table. Since we are going to have to eat around our larger table every night shortly, I upgraded my little desk to a larger roll-top desk with work and storage room.

I think this stands to be the first time ever that I can actually keep the papers off the dining room table - I'm pretty excited about that!

I think we are going to take a fall break from school next week and do a deep clean and purge before my trip to Ethiopia. My kids rooms are in desperate need of me and my garbage bag!

Mission Trip

     I want to first state that this is not Jenny, it is her daughter, Alyssa. In July, God gave me a sign that I am going to be a missionary when i'm older. I've wanted to be one since I was very little; (I'm 13 now). I was ecstatic and it led me into considering a short term mission trip. Turns out, it wasn't easy convincing my Mom; she was worried, as a mother should be, and so I asked for her to have an answer in one week. She agreed. All through the week she kept saying that she didn't know if she'd have an answer by the day she was supposed to tell me. On the day that I had anticipated, I asked her that morning what she thought, and she replied that she still didn't have an answer. And since I was planning on fasting that day for the answer, I continued and went to Classical Conversations. That very night she came to me and said that she and my Dad were going to let me go!   

     Now I am excited to tell you that I will be going on a mission trip to South Africa/Zambia summer of 2013! I am traveling with a ministry called Global Expeditions, which is a part of Teen Mania Ministries. Every year Global Expeditions takes thousands of young people on mission trips around the world. The vision of Global Expeditions is to use young people, like myself, to make an eternal impact in this world! I have decided to be a part of this ministry this summer as I go to South Africa/Zambia to change the face of my own country. My missions’ team will minister throughout the cities of South Africa/Zambia. Each day on the mission field we will present the gospel through drama and street evangelism. Also I’ll be able to minister to Muslims and Hindus, be a part of the children’s ministry and serve refugees and immigrants! This trip will be very challenging, but I am excited to see God use me this summer to change the lives of many who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

     I will be leaving on June 15, 2013 and returning home on August 01, 2013. In the meantime I will be working hard to raise funds for my trip. The total cost of this trip is close to $6,000, which includes all expenses: airfare, accommodations, food and training. I know that I cannot accomplish this task alone and I trust that God will provide the finances needed for me to go on this mission trip. I am asking you to be a part of this trip with me by making a donation towards my trip cost. I have several financial deadlines to meet; the  major one is April 25th 2013, when half of my trip's cost is due. Any amount that you can give will be greatly appreciated. If you would like to support me in this exciting opportunity, you can donate online at www.globalexpeditions.com/donate. All donations are tax deductible. Your support is an important part of seeing many salvations on the field this summer. If you have any questions please feel free to comment on this post or email me at jenandkids@va.metrocast.net. Also, for more information feel free to call the Global Expeditions Missions Support Hotline at 1.866.5.GLOBEX.

Missionary ID number: 2683113

The link to donate is right here.

                                 
                                       Thank-you so much for your time and consideration,
                                          I greatly appreciate your prayer and support!
                                                                 God Bless, Alyssa