New Van, New Chicks and New News!

We picked up our new (to us) van today. It is fairly new, a 2011 and only has 10,000 miles on it. It should last ten years and maybe, just maybe, I won't be forced to drive something quite that enormous at that point. As we stared at it in the dealer parking lot today, we commented that it isn't everyone who rolls into the Ford dealer in a 12 passenger van with the complaint that they have out-grown it! While I searched for the perfect van for the last several weeks, the only thing I asked every dealer was that I wanted one that was NOT white. I don't have anything against the color white, other than there are a hundred of them in my county alone. Of course, I got white - thank you Ford who decided to make 95% of the vans the last few years white. I would like to apologize in advance to the other large families in the county when my children open your side van door and throw in their grassy cleats before they realize that they are at the wrong van! 

We took Julia and Elijah to the dealer today to fill out the paperwork; here they are watching the Chipmunks while they waited. 

Here they are at the opening of the new white van. (I think I'll paint some shooting flames down the side or something.)

Julia found a tree to climb during Dad's last few words with the nice salesman who filled the tank for us before we left.

There she is! I know you are thinking church van, but there are little options for people like us at this point. 

While JD went back to work, the little guys and I hit Tractor Supply for grass seed, lime, chicken feed, (a small cool toy tractor)  - 

AND  six baby Americana chicks. Americanas lay "Easter" eggs that are pretty shades of blue and green. 

We had some chick bonding time before moving them out to the baby cage in the hen house. 
Nothing brings a family together more than baby anything. That long box in the picture is a big sun umbrella I bought at Ikea for the deck - it made a wonderful temporary chick condo. 

So, our exciting new news is that our first trip to Ethiopia for court could be much sooner than I anticipated; it may also be sooner than JD is even able to leave the country since he is in the middle of a re-compete for his job contract. In that case, I will be going without him, with a power of attorney. We are not willing to leave our little girls there any longer than we have to. There will still be a three month wait after our court date until they are cleared to come home, but the sooner the first trip, the sooner the second.