Family Camp

We attended our sixth consecutive weekend of family camp last weekend. There were many, many hurdles this year, including JD needing to be out of town and a Saturday funeral, but we still prioritized the weekend away in the mountains with the kids. It's always such a great time for them with good memories. My parents were in town for the week and joined us at camp on Saturday afternoon. We then met them in Charlottesville on Sunday to walk around the old town area and eat over-priced ice-cream. 

I have pictures to prove their presence on Tori's camera; these were just the convenient shots from my phone. 

The boy on the left is Elijah's friend that he enjoys seeing so much each year.

Honestly, I LOVE not having to shop, cook or do dishes for the weekend!

Archery was available again this year, which was nice.

I guess Tori is analyzing the schedule; there were several times that you had to choose what to do as four things were offered at the same time.

Lots of fun yard games. 

 Yep, and that good food that didn't involve me -

 

This high course was an addition also behind the rock wall. Elijah scaled right up.

Selah was right behind him, heading up as he went across.

Bella stuck with the rock wall, which is scary enough to me!

African drumming - 

We played Bingo one night for some pretty great prizes; Elijah took it seriously.

The day we came home was my birthday. Moriah made us a wonderful, wonderful chicken Parmesan and we had some key-lime pie for dessert.

Not a great picture of any of us, but it's a picture of all of us :)

Alei may have her own puppy these days, but Alaska still appreciates her holding his huge self.

Of course, every time it rains, he ends up like this and then doesn't see why we don't just welcome him in the house.

Jenny

New Adventure

We have launched into a new pastime as a family - cheering for Elijah and his team "The Americans" at flag football. It is a rather competitive sport and feels so official since they play on the high-school field. 

Last Sunday, we (JD, I, Tori, Moriah, Chris, Selah and Bella) froze our tooshies off on the bleachers. We had on coats and went back for picnic blankets to try and stay warm.

Elijah - far left

Today it was just Tori and I as the spectators. JD had his annual "Beans and Bullets" church mens group here, Selah and Bella went and toured the battle- fields with friends, Julia went to another friends, etc, etc. Today was 82 degrees - hard to believe only six days after we froze at the first game.

Elijah played so well today - he is a 9 year old on the 9-11 team and his first year AND he removed five flags! It was a pretty exciting game and they won with a handsome lead. We were so proud of our little buddy!

Elijah - far right

I need to do the battle field tour with the other kids, it was pretty impressive  book and route the girls did today to learn about the Civil War. Here they are at the big Confederate Cemetery downtown - 

And even more exciting - Cook Out!

Jenny

 

Happy Easter

James left this week for his pre-boot camp military program in Virginia Beach, (more on that later). This leaves Elijah with his 7 sisters for Easter. 

Alei got her German Shepherd puppy, Lucca, this week also, bringing our dog total to six dogs. It was our first attempt at a picture with the dogs. Poor old Lincoln is 13 and has always had some emotional challenges so it will take him a few days to recover. 

Getting ready -

 

Chris came and played football with Elijah.

The best one I guess - (had one child disgruntled and refusing to smile, so this is as good as it gets this year!)

Jenny 

Finally Continued!

My continued took a bit longer than I hoped. I finally got JD's help tonight in moving Erica's picture folders to my computer and then grabbing some of hers and mine for the next few shots.

This is a really cute picture of Julia, Erica and Tori in my opinion.

I got Julia and Erica lockets that we put pictures of them in.

Because I am such an over-achiever (or ridiculous and crazy), we had Tori's late 13th birthday party while Erica was here; it was an efficient way for her to be able to meet the group of friends. 

They had fun playing outside after our planned inside games. Moriah (on the far right) played like she was 13 also; I haven't seen her have that much fun in a while.
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This cake was pretty consumed that night!

We are hoping to see Erica and her mom sooner than later, as I have a dream to make it across the country this year to Montana and she isn't too many hours across the border! We shall see...

Jenny

The Week with Erica

Adoption holds a lot of unknowns, but Julia has always known that she has a sister, named Erica, that lives in Canada. I have pictures of Erica that I took in Liberia when she was just three. Although Erica was matched to her family at the same time we were matched to Julia (and neither of us were told there was a sister), it took a full year longer for her to make it home to Canada due to the laws. 

It has been very important to both of them to know each other, and they have written letters back and forth for years. This visit gave them the foundation to have a true sister relationship; it was a really great week for both of them. 

This is Julia at the airport last week. The plane was slightly delayed and we both were nervously waiting.

Wednesday was a stay at home day and Thursday we hit DC; just Joanne and Erica with Julia, Tori and I. We did the monuments and three Smithsonians sandwiched into the fine DC rush hour traffic.

The mall between the Washington monument and the Lincoln Memorial

The Batmobile!

I like this picture. I was getting ready to take it when a nice young man offered to have me join it.

 

Here is a piece of the Berlin Wall - 

Some similarities to each other but not carbon copies or anything.

We did some fun at home activities this week also. This is everyone making tie-dye shirts. I am pretty unimpressed that I didn't get a group picture yesterday of everyone wearing them; they were really cute!

to be continued ...