OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: July 2021

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.

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Sunday Travel

Last Sunday was major travel for our family. Gabriel left for deployment; I'm sad for him to be away from his family for so long, so say a prayer for him and Alayna and the boys when you think of them.

He was rerouted for a bit due to storms, but made it to his future home for the next seven months yesterday.

Alyssa, JP and Oliver hit the beach in Myrtle Beach. I have the cutest video ever of Oliver dancing on the beach, but Blogger doesn't want to upload it for us!

Elijah and I set off for Spartanburg, SC for a week of basketball camp. I have hit the sports big league with this kiddo! The plan was I was going to take Selah and Bella also and we were going to explore the local area, but I am awaiting an MRI for what is likely a herniated disk and walking is quite painful. Instead, I arranged for them to go to friend's houses for four of the five days and they got to swim their last swim meet of the summer. I spent a LOT of time in the hotel room doing school since walking was too painful to go exploring. I got two full weeks of work done in four days and only went a bit stir-crazy.

Elijah did long days from 7:45 a.m. until 9:15 p.m., except the last night he didn't get out until 11:15. There was 6 hours of classroom basketball and 6 hours of court a day. He starts practices for this winter starting tomorrow night. I didn't see this coming at the beginning, but I really like basketball and I love the families we travel and hang with on this team!

The last night of basketball around 11:30 p.m. - worn out.

A huge surprise was the fact that JD's sister, Nancy, moved to Spartanburg area the week before Elijah and my visit. Their daughter and family lives close also, so I was able to go see the one day at their house and then Elijah and I met them on the way out of town on Friday.

We got home on Friday night in time for Tori and Julia's end of the year ceremony from their summer work on Saturday. It was an awesome ceremony. This is them with Elisha who ran the program.

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Happy Campers

It seems every time I book a beach trip, something causes us to cancel it. This year I booked two weekend trips to VA Beach at a nice, quiet camp ground on base. We went on our first trip successfully in May, but the upcoming August one will be cancelled because Moriah and Chris' baby is coming three weeks early! It's a lot better of a reason to cancel than the usual hurricane. Next summer I am planning a whole week in Myrtle Beach with Alyssa and her husband's side of the family.

It's hard to leave all the animals behind. Here are my Amish "barn cats" while I pack.

Lucca wanted to know if he could come too -

Here's our happy campers - the two older girls do not enjoy camping and don't generally go with us.

We had one nice evening and the following day at the beach before a storm and dropping temperatures came in. I enjoy about two days of sun and sand and then I've kind of had enough. I'm generally sun-burnt by that point as well.

This was one early morning that we headed down first thing to watch the dolphins. There were several of them but one rode the wave in over and over right by us. I love watching them!