OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: NYC

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.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

NYC - Round Two

We put in a very long second day in NY, with even more walking than the first. The kids did great; I really wish I knew how many miles we walked. We started by getting off the train at 9th street and walking to and around Times Square, which is something like 50th street. After most of the day in that area, we walked a further 20 or so blocks to Central Park.

The kids enjoyed meeting the police on horse-back.

We were also able to meet a few celebrities -

The kids got a free water bottle by being videoed for a kid's water campaign.

We visited several kid friendly locations. We spent way too long in Toys R Us, but they had such a great time. Elijah even got to meet Spiderman, which is something he actually requested on the drive up, (but I opted to not pay $20 for the picture that they take.) They also rode the ferris wheel and visited with the huge robotic dinosaur.

We took a stroll through Central Park at the end of the day. The tough part of the trip was our walk back, our "cheap, quick" dinner at McDonalds and our difficulty in finding the correct train (it was the New Jersey Path, not the regular Subway.) Both Elijah and Julia were asleep in the strollers much of the trip back, but we had to carry them, the strollers and all the bags on and off the trains. One of the trains was so packed that I couldn't even reach a pole to hold on, we were just holding on the kids and trying to not fall over. We left McDonalds at 9:00 p.m. and reached our van at almost mid-night; quite the adventure!

Today is supposed to be our last day at the lake, but it is really storming, so it may end up being an indoor day. We do have to clean the house and pack up for our journey home tomorrow.

Our biggest blessing is that we seem to not have suffered too much in the earthquake that hit very near our home (and Alei) while we are away. Alei was at work during the quake and it took several hours before we were able to reach her. Our home seems to not have any damage. We are due for a hurricane to hit this weekend also, so we are going to buying some supplies on our way home.