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.

Saturday, July 21, 2018

A Bit of Catch-Up

 We had a great visit with Gabriel, Alayna and Nathan in spite of the high temps and broken AC. Here is Nathan being a ninja at the hotel breakfast on the way. 


Nathan sleeping on the long ride (yes, they drove this time). 


A quick dip in the hotel pool and delivering coffee to his momma - 


I let Selah and Bella go to church camp with a friend and her daughter at the local church that they attend Awana at. They left the day before Nathan, and while he smiled for this picture, he sobbed when he realized they were leaving him. He kept crying that "they left me" - it broke my heart. 


During Nathan's visit, Butte had a baby girl. This baby is full llama and looks like her momma. She is soft and snuggly; not sure I can sell her!




The hot days are not pleasant for the llamas; this day, standing in the pool wasn't enough for Butte. I need to get them a larger pool!



Thankfully our AC is fixed now, but it was down 8 weeks! We are dealing with a basement mold issue now also from the high humidity and lack of air circulation. This picture was taken at the ribbon cutting ceremony for our community food pantry, but it was just so hot and miserable that afternoon!



 The new office and entry way are almost done, but I've also decided to paint the entire basement as I deal with mold areas; it just needs to be done before I focus anymore on the upstairs. 

It's been a very, very busy summer but we are having some fun. We have season passes to Kings Dominion and have gone several times. The kids are old enough that I easily take them when JD is unavailable and we have several friends with passes also. 

Here is a lousy picture of Julia's friend, Julia, me and Tori on the Dominator. Elijah and his friend were right behind us. 


We have also had several days of pool and lake fun; here's Elijah at a birthday party at the lake with fun cup-cakes. 



 We only have two more weeks of swim team until finals also!

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Pre-4th

 The good news? My Colorado kids and grand-baby came to visit! The bad news? It's HOT and our AC is not working!!! We are on round two of no AC this summer due to the slowness of the warranty and ordering parts for a geo-thermal unit. The first round was 2.5 weeks and this round we are at 3.5 weeks. We obviously are not going to be able to count on them for timely repairs, but are just trapped this round until the part comes in and it's fixed. I won't even go into the long version of the story, but my "favorite" is when the lady told me I wasn't a priority because it was 82 degrees the day I spoke to her, never mind it was 97 just a few days before that when it was out. 

At this point, we have installed a larger window unit in the living room and have a few smaller units about the house, but the kids still all sleep on the living room floor and the Coloradians are sleeping in the nice AC of the camper.

Yesterday, Gabriel and I hit the pool with the kids - Nathan turned 3 in February and his new baby brother is due in September. 

sometimes the suit creeps down in the back but snacks should still be the focus





I will get some pictures today of us in our red, white and blue, but I must head out early to tend to the animals and garden. Yesterday I managed to be rather sun-sick by evening; apparently I didn't drink enough water to compensate for my time in the sun. 

Don't forget to fill your llama's wading pool - it's hot!