Simply Said

"Manuel is such a great little kid and so happy! He has the most adorable little grin, and he uses it often. About the only time I do not see Manuel smiling is when he has his thumb in his mouth......" from our Aug. update on Aidan.

GUESS WHAT................GOOD NEWS!!!!!!

Got your attention, right? Well I just couldn't wait any more!!!!! I was trying to wait for our update pictures, but didn't get what I was looking for. So I just have to tell you the news..................we're ADOPTING again!!!!! That's right............you read it correctly. We are adding to our family again:) We are adding a girl from Haiti. I feel like it's a God thing.............she's got a great story..............but just haven't put it all down yet into thoughts on paper. So hopefully you'll see pictures soon and hear more about it. Alyssa was the first to "spill the beans"..............by praying for her in front of some people. Such innocense!! Seeing that we have a long wait still ahead of us.................**sigh**.............you'd think I could wait til I could post a picture, but at the same time many family and friends have already heard through casual conversation with us over the last week, so we wanted to keep all our family and friends up to date!!

She's a lovely 6 year old and we can't wait to meet her when we ever go pick up Aidan :)

Summer in Review....

I was feeling bad thinking about our summer..............at spring time I was thinking this was going to be the summer of FUN . The 2 kids are at GrEaT ages to do fun activities...........but our summer ended up a little different. We started with a flood in our basement and remained packed in boxes til we moved in Aug. I spent more time cleaning, working, and being over-whelmed than I did feeling like we had tons of fun. But then as I looked over all our pictures...............I realized we had ALOT of fun. We had lots memorable times. I may have been over-whelmed, but the kids were having a blast playing.

Highlight was a week of camping and playing with cousins. It was one of the few hot, beach times

Austin was quite the mechanic and cleaner of his scooter

Paul and his brother went camping with the kids-----and everyone survived :)

In fact Alyssa was introduced to bologna on that camping trip, and she loves it. So I've bought my first bologna this summer. The simple things......................

Catching turtles

This looks awesome, doesn't it?

Fun times!!

Dressing Bella up for 4th of July

Our new house---there is tons of excitement on our move and more to come in the future :)

Yes---lots of cleaning.......

But also lots of playing at the new house!!

Other highlights were planning and having a kool-aid stand, learning to tie our shoes, playing with friends, picking peaches----and of course getting cider donuts at the orchard :), a trip to Chicago, swimming...........going on vacation and on a few bike rides........Climbing sand dunes. Maybe we weren't at the beach as much as I thought I might be...............but I'm looking forward to fall walks and being outdoors. One of our last ventures this week before school starts is going to the beach and climbing Mt. Pisgah and eating at pronto pups..............we are so looking forward to that :)

Rain made it fun

We had a trip planned to Michigan's Adventure on friday. The forecast wasn't looking too good, in fact it looked miserable and rainy. But seeing that the forecast looked pretty much the same for the next week, we decided to drive and see how it was once we were there. It stayed dry til we got to the parking lot of the amusement park, then the skies let loose and the rain came. So we pulled over and chatted about it, deciding if we wanted to try for Sat. or what we were going to do. We asked the parking guy about rides closing with rain and he said they all ran, rain or shine, unless lightening. That was all the kids needed to hear. Soon the kids were begging us...........'please don't let a little rain stop us from going..........please.......it will be sooooooo fun...........we'll be able to play in the rain'. So, since this day was all about the kids and not us, we made it ago. And boy did they have fun!!!

I have to say the rain added to the fun. It was like this novelty and you can only imagine them stomping around. There are no pictures to share because I didn't want to get the camera wet, but the memories are worth a million dollars. And I have to say..............because there were very few people there, I think the longest we waited for a ride was....??maybe 3 minutes. We rode all the rides til our hearts content. I think Alyssa and Austin would have kept going, but I was ready for supper.

Who would have thought............rain and an amusement park...............pretty fun!!!

blessing beyond blessing

I've often heard a common phrase about Haiti. Mountain beyond mountain. I think I've even read a book titled that, about a Dr. in Haiti. We've been able to see these mountains on our trips and at first glance, my first impression, was that the mountains looked "tired". They looked dry and not so full of life. But Haiti can have that look about it. it's been stripped away of it's beauty. It's been robbed of being naturally beautiful. As we traveled to a village, our path

was very adventurous. There was

lots of winding around the mountians on something that was barely a path.

There were times you could see over everything, and times you could only see the side of the mountian directly infront of the car. Sometimes you could touch the clouds. It was truely incredible. The saying of

'mountian beyond mountain' is very true that once you reach what you think is the top.......there is another mountain to rise to...........and behind that another. It's stunningly beautiful once you get off the coast level. There is more green areas as you get into cooler areas. It's amazing to see the horizon and see the amazing views with mountains all around.

I've heard the term 'mountian beyond mountain' parallel some of the Haitian lives. There is always a struggle to rise above, and once they figured out how to live with it, there is always another struggle. Just the enormous difficulties

people live with for basic life. Yes, I'd have to agree with that. Life can be very hard in many aspects.

My first thought was to think about my life. We've had trials that looked like mountains when we were in the mists of them. So I start thinking about all the ups and downs in our life. I'm paralleling that indeed there is always something in life that is a struggle. Yet, as I start thinking about what might have been "mountains"...........I realize that they have also become the biggest blessings through out our life. I feel like each time we trust God to help us conqueror a mountain................we just keep getting a bigger blessing. I feel like my life is full of blessing beyond blessing. There has been times that we've needed more faith or it's a bigger leap, yet I feel like there has been bigger blessings in knowing God in those times. I think the more difficult times that we lean on Him...........he will see us through til the end and it will be a bigger blessing. I like that way of

thinking about it...............blessing beyond blessing.

"I lift up my eyes to the hill, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord...." Ps. 121

Blessing to you!

bugs and kids........

I loved this past months update! How appropriate and creative that GLA chooses a theme of bugs. I mean, don't kids........EVERYWHERE.........just find fascination with bugs!! I thought it was a great summary of the theme:

We certainly have our fair share of bugs in Haiti, and many of your children are fascinated by the bugs they see. The older kids, especially, enjoy capturing and/or observing whatever bugs they may find. This is also a good reminder:

The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. ~Psalm 24:1

So there really isn't much update as far as timing goes. I know that's the big question now :) I did find out that once we are out of MOI, we have approximately 4-6 weeks til we travel. So I guess we just patiently wait, we could be out at anytime.............or not. We've waited the "approximate" waiting time already, so there is really no telling.

As much as my "expectations" were to have Aidan home by Sept at the latest..........in a weird way, it might be a mixed blessing to be a couple weeks after I was hoping. Having moved, i feel like we're just starting to get settled and yet I'm sure there are things that can be done once the kids are back in school and I have time to focus on the house more. I usually don't like to focus on this negative timing stuff, but I know alot of family and friends have probably wondered what the latest is. I have a weird peace about this all, yet knowing it's so close to the end.............I sure am getting antsy. I start to get a little anxious over the timing, just because Paul has a longer out of town trip planned for this fall also-----and I just don't want the timings to clash.................but that isn't for me to worry about...........it's all in HIS timing!! More summer pictures of our family to come soon.....

Tap Tap House

There's so much to say, and so little time to gather all my thoughts :)
We've been having a great summer. Mid July we took our family vacation where we rent a cottage and relax for the week. The best part of going on vacation was that the friday before we left we found out we bought a house! and we also found a renter for our current house!! Yea---all these pieces are falling into place!! We had been up in the air for a long time about moving, it really was a hard decision. It's not that we needed more room, but yet when we thought about life and what we wanted for our family 'goals', we knew we weren't in the right place. Anyways----we could go and feel like it was done and enjoy the vacation!!
So I was listening to someone talk about Haiti and of course something that gets mentioned are the Tap Taps. They are "buses" that pick up people and bring them to the market or where ever they are going. They are always filled with people, basically if there is a place to hold onto and a place for a foot--you got yourself a ride. I liked what this person said. Tap Taps can be known for "there is always room for one more". I like that analogy and I thought I really want to make our house a Tap Tap house. A place where there is 'always room for one more'. I don't know what that looks like yet. I don't really have specific plans, but that's the exciting part. I think God can use it when we open it up to him. My mind thinks about hosting exchange students or doing foster care. Maybe another adoption or refugee. Who knows.

So this week I'm packing and cleaning---sounds fun, right?!

Start of summer

Wow! We jumped into summer with both feet and were off running right away. I feel like we're getting to the point that we can come up for air again :) It's been good. It's great having the kids home, I LOVE it!!

Some busyness was self induced :) We started right away with some swimming lessons and some rec stuff--but that helped get us going so we didn't get into habits of sleeping in and lounging around! In that time we threw in working extra (which is out of the norm for me), having our 14th anniversary--but literally crossing paths and seeing each other for about 5 minutes that day, looking at houses and putting an offer on one, thinking about what that really looks like to move this summer before Aidan comes home, having my dad's 60th birthday party, making 20 lbs of potato salad (about 19 lbs too much), my sister and brother in law from out of town, making awesome strawberry jelly, and cleaning up wet basements from a storm :) But hey......it's all in a days work ..............actually I think my husband is ready to commit me for insanity :)
Then we had a FANTASTIC week of camping with family. It was the one and only HOT weather week we've had so far this summer, but it was great for us because we were by the pool and beach all day. I'd take that any day over the past cold summer, drizzly days. The pictures can't even discribe how much fun the kids had. They were in their glory to be able to ride their bikes around and play at the park and go to the candy store...........you can't get any better than that! It was perfect!









It was wonderful getting our June update. As I was starting to feel on top of things, I enjoyed looking and imagining him through his pictures. We actually got great pictures of him and some of the nannies that care for him. I think it will be great to have those for him. We even have been able to get pictures of his birth family, which is awesome!! I think it's great for kids to have any info they can about their birth families. No timing news, but didn't expect any either.....at this point I'm glad to know that God has the perfect timing, because I don't think I could plan better than God at this point. I may try, but life sure has had lots of twists and turns lately. :)
Okay--so we get lots of pictures and I just think he keeps getting cuter and cuter!! I absolutely can't wait to just watch him enjoy life.





I also came across this video of GLA doing VBS. I think it's adorable of the kids singing...



Well.........Blessings!