Thursday, June 26, 2008

Erin's DL and Megan's crafts

I've written a lot about the boys but not as much about the girls. In an effort to give equal coverage of a sort, I'll update you a little about Megan and Erin. First of all, Erin has her adult driver's license now. When we first moved here she was able to drive without us but hadn't held her license for a whole year so those priviledges were recinded when we moved until it was a whole year from her driving test. Well, it has been a year and thankfully FL accepted her previous driving test so she now has her DL again. That means she joins the family taxi service. :-) Erin has been looking for work and working on her math this summer.

Megan has made some friends at the bank and enjoys work a lot more. I enjoy her working at the bank because her coworkers and bank customers bring in watermelons, green beans, corn, and other produce that she brings home for us! Yum, yum. She is also back to work on her crafts. If I can get a picture from her, I'll post her latest creation. I told her she should submit it to one of the make it yourself craft magazines.


Friday, June 20, 2008

WE'RE FINALIZED!!!

Yes, you read it right. The kids have been finalized this past week. So we are now their parents and family according to the courts in Liberia. They already have their passports from Liberia. And, they have had their birthparent interview yesterday with the American embassy. The American consulate meets with the birth parents and the kids to determine that the parents are really who they say they are. Most of the time now a DNA test is ordered to establish the legal right of the adults to relinquish the children to us. The consulate ordered the DNA test be conducted which will take about a month since the tests are sent to America for processing. So as long as we don't hit any more glitches we may be traveling around the end of July. However, since everything has taken lots longer than we thought it would, we won't make any arrangements until we hear back about the DNA test results. Thanks for everyone's prayers on our behalf.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Blueberry picking...

Our friends from church have a bunch of blueberry bushes with a bunch of blueberries on them. They invited us over to help them pick berries last night. So we got three big plastic containers full of blueberries in an hour. The price of blueberries are $2.99 a pint in the store and I am guessing we picked at least 25 pints. Our friends said we could have all we wanted for FREE. Yummy! I'll try to post a picture of our wonderful gift and the total number of pints we picked (or at least the total that made it back home and not in our tummies).

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Kids Helping Kids

I've added a link to a great site that allows kids to help other kids. KidsLAKE usually has monthly projects where they raise money to donate to a cause. Recently they raised money to drill a well in Africa, support a school in Kenya and this month they are raising money to buy mosquito nets in Liberia. KidsLAKE also has an educational section on their site for the places they are raising money for. Homeschoolers love this part! Check it out as a way to allow your kids to donate whatever they can to pool together with other kids to really make an impact helping other kids in the world.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

No news yet...

We haven't heard anything for a couple of weeks now about the adoption. Other families in our "group" that received referrals a year ago are moving forward in the process. We are pleased to see things progressing in Liberia again and hope to hear that our case is also moving forward. As soon as we hear something, we'll definitely share.

In the mean time, Romeo and Juliet has finished! Yay! Erik has decided that he doesn't like being an actor as much as being backstage. I'll post some pictures when I get copies from a friend. My camera decided to die this past week. Treasure Island has started rehearsals and Erik is student director, which he loves. Karl got a small speaking role as a pirate so I predict I hear a lot of "arghh me mateys" in the next few weeks.

I heard from my daughter my eldest granddaughter gave herself a haircut! She thought she did so well that she played barber with her little sister. They are 4 and 2. Evidently the oldest had enough hair left to salvage into a pixie cut but the youngest has short short hair. I was laughing when Jessica told me what happened but it hit me that I am now part of the older generation! Yikes!

My other granddaughter who is 1 just learned to walk unattended yesterday. Our daughter sent a video to share the moment via their blog. Technology is so great now that we can see the milestones like walking and haircuts almost as soon as they happen.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Ramblings...

Nothing yet from AOH about finalization although two friends of Abraham's have moved through finalization and onto the next step. That's good news that adoptions have resumed and we should be hearing something soon. I plan to send a card with one of the families that should be traveling soon to let the kids know we haven't forgotten them in the year since we got their referral.

Karl auditioned for Treasure Island this week. He is anxiously waiting for the phone call from the director as I'm typing this to hear which of the pirates he gets to be. He was told he would be in the show and be a pirate but now we'll find out how many lines he gets, if any. Craig has been 'hired' to be the light man and Erik is the student director. I think Erin will be helping out backstage with her new friend Allie. Allie's younger brother will be a pirate, too, after he gave such a great audition by memorizing his lines in about 10 minutes. Karl is busy re-reading the book Treasure Island in order to refresh his memory of the story.

It is really starting to get summery now. It is easily 90 plus degrees and humid by mid-morning. The kids and I went to a local spring to go swimming with some other homeschoolers. As it turned out, Karl and I were the only ones to go in the water. The springs are much like a lake with the dirt bottom and tree roots and algae, etc. The highlight of our afternoon was the appearance of a 4 foot alligator in the springs. I may never get the others into the water since I had convinced them that alligators don't frequent the freshwater springs because they are too clear and too cold. We left but a friend said that the gator disappeared and everyone trickled back into the water for the rest of the afternoon!