The Missing Teeth

Chart compliments of ADA

When Joseph came home from Ethiopia at 22 months, he had 14 teeth.  He seemed to be right on track as far as teeth except that he didn't yet have lower canines.  We figured, though, that they would be popping through at any time.  Well . . .  a year later, when they still hadn't come in we started to wonder what was going on.  We had heard rumors from some online adoption communities of cultural practices in Ethiopia of removing these teeth in infants, but we were still thinking that they would just be coming in late. 

Fortunately, we were able to visit with Joseph's birthmother again on our last trip, so we had the opportunity to learn what happened!

And what we found out was VERY interesting.  We explained to his sweet, sweet birthmother that some of Joseph's teeth never erupted and we asked her if she knew of any reason why.  She said that when he was about 8 months old that they removed his canines!! We asked how this was performed and what we got through the translator was that some sort of "hook" was used.  She then preceded to tell us that the teeth were removed because this prevents diarrhea in the infant period.

And there we had it - our suspicions were confirmed. . . .

Further research on the subject has revealed that this is actually a common practice in a lot of areas of Africa, particularly in the region of Ethiopia where Joseph is from.  Tooth eruption is sometimes associated with the onset of diarrhea, leading many mothers to assume a causal relationship.  They, therefore, feel that the removal of these teeth will prevent infantile diarrhea.  The procedure is most often performed on children from 4-18 months of age (depending on what source you look at), typically without anesthesia, and with a sharp instrument such as a hot needle or knife.  It is usually done by a traditional practitioner known as yetirs awlakiy (tooth extractor).  As for long term consequences of this procedure, it appears that he may have a higher chance of needing orthodontic work, but we plan to discuss this further with our dentist as well.

For my friends in the Ethiopian adoption community, here are a few links to articles that discuss more about this procedure.

Dental injuries due to African traditional therapies for diarrhea

Tooth follicle extirpation and uvulectomy

Clinical Topics — Canine Extraction
 

Ahl-geh-bah-gnim

Ahl-geh-bah-gnim or for those of you (like us) who don't speak Amharic "I don't understand."  This is a phrase that we have practiced over and over as we are sure that it will be used quite often in the first few weeks that our son is home! :) 

We've had many people ask us if our son speaks English or if we speak Amharic?  Well, unfortunately, the answer to both is No.  On a positive note, though, we are both making attempts from opposite sides of the world to learn a few basics in each other's language.  We were able to set up private English lessons for our son at the orphanage for 3 hours per week, and we have recently begun a few Amharic lessons of our own!

Our son's progress seems to be decent.  The orphanage said he is now able to count to 100 and write the alphabet, and from our experience with him, we are guessing that he has maybe 50-100 vocab words.  He was not able to understand much (if any) of what we said to him in English or form sentences while we were there, but we think he still has a good start.

As for our progress, well. . . . we are trying. . . but this language is HARD!  Our Amharic connection and lessons have come through an Ethiopian refugee in St. Louis who a friend introduced us to.  Meeting this man and his sweet wife (who just came to the US 3 months ago) has been a true blessing. We have learned just as much about the Ethiopian culture as we have about the language.  When we went for our lesson last night - they had a traditional coffee ceremony for us - what a great surprise!  And our progress with the language you may be wondering . . . well we can count to 10 and have learned several important phrases like - Are you hungry?  Don't do that! and Do you need to shint?**  We are slow.  :)

So between us learning a little Amharic and our son learning a little English, plus a LOT of charades hopefully we will survive the first few weeks at home.  We have talked to several families who have had to overcome a similar language barrier and they have told us that the children catch on VERY quickly.  We know that their will be lots of frustration, though, in the first few months so we will covet your prayers when we embark upon that part of the journey!

For those of you in the Ethiopian adoption world - we have found this book to be particularly helpful.  We bought it on Amazon.

**  Sidenote on "Shint."  So the Amharic word for urinate is "shint."  I know - interesting, right?  When Joseph came home from Ethiopia he used a handful of Amharic words and one of them used regularly was "shint."  One day after tireless efforts at potty training, while standing in the checkout line at Target, Joseph starting YELLING, "Mommy, Daddy - I need to go SHINT!"  Oh my - can you imagine the looks we got from everyone standing around us!  That was certainly a hard one to explain. . . .

A sneak peak

Well - we are home, over our jet lag, and finally getting caught up on things after being in Ethiopia.  We've had lots of requests for more pictures from our trip so wanted to post a few.   Unfortunately, we can't post any revealing pictures of our son until he is back home, but we'll give you a sneak peak today since there isn't anything identifying about him in the picture.  :) 



Building under construction in the capital Addis Ababa (notice the scaffolding)



The road to Hosanna







More countryside on the way to Hosanna



 

Rural Ethiopia - Lining up for water at the well



Water being transported from the well



Rural famer

Meeting the child my mom sponsors through Yelezelam Minch



Our son's room!



Your sneak peak!! (Measuring his foot so we can figure out shoe size!)



  

And we can't forget Joseph - he celebrated his 3rd birthday while we were gone!



We are still praying that we will be able to go back to Ethiopia within the the next 6-8 weeks to pick up our son.  We learned last week that they have secured his new birth certificate with our last name on it and hope to hear soon that they also have his passport.  After that our file will be submitted to the US Embasssy in Ethiopia so a Visa can be assigned.  Thanks for praying with us!



A Day to Remember

April 25th will go down as possibly one of the most memorable days of our lives.  This morning we had the privilege of telling our son that he is going to be part of our forever family.  We were both nervous and excited about this.  When we arrived at the orphanage, our son immediately found us and gave us a big hug.  I imagine he had an idea what was going on, but we had our social worker sit with us and translate the good news.  We gave him a book of photos of our family and told him we were so excited to be adopting him.  He had a HUGE smile on his face as he looked at the pictures of us and his new brother Joseph.  We showed him pictures of our house, his room, grandparents, and cousins. He did not quit smiling the entire time. I think he was the most excited, though, when he saw the picture of the bicycle we bought him.  When the social worked translated that the bike was for him, he said multiple times "that's for me?"  It was precious.  He then asked a lot of questions about going on the plane - specifically if it was "scary" and if he "could open the windows."  :)

The rest of the morning with him was awesome.  He kept saying things like "Look Mom" or "Look Dad" and then would show off a flip on the trampoline or soccer move.  The older kids at the orphanage quickly caught on that we were adopting him as well.  They kept running up to us saying things like, "You his momma and dadda?"  and  "He going to America with you?"

Our social worker then had to explain that unfortunately we will have to go back to America for a few months while the paperwork is processed.  He seemed to understand, but we will certainly be praying that he will be at peace during the rest of the process and fully understand that we WILL be back soon.

We are still on cloud nine from today's experience.  It was honestly one of the best days that we have ever had.  Thank you God for your provision, thank You for placing adoption on our hearts, and thank You for giving this child to our family.

Our Day in Court

Today we appeared before the Ethiopian courts to finalize our adoption.  We arrived to the courts around 9:00 am and finally were called in at about 10:30.  The judge asked us about Joseph, if we had completed any training on identity issues with international adoption, and if we were making the Ethiopian heritage a part of our life at home.  We were then asked if we understood that after today the adoption was final and of course we said yes.  And then. . . . the judge told us that our case could not be approved because there was a document missing.  Ughhhh!!

This story does have a happy ending, though.  Apparently there was one document that the court lost.  Our agency had a copy of it and the director was able to go to a nearby internet cafe, print it out, and then run it up to the judge before she left.  We were then granted approval!  We are now a family of FOUR!!  All praise to God!

The adoption is considered final at this time and now our agency will work on getting a new Ethiopian birth certificate and passport.  They will then submit this information to the US Embassy so our son can get a visa to come to the US.  We expect this to take 2-3 months.

We are excited to see our son tomorrow and tell him about our family!

In Love

Today was the day that we met our son!  And I must say that we are IN LOVE!  After barely sleeping due to the excitement we finally made our way to the orphanage at about 10:00 am this morning.  Our son is normally at school outside the orphanage but they had him stay back today since we were visiting.  They have not yet told him that he is being adopted by us as they want to wait until after we hopefully pass court tomorrow and the adoption is final.  (Surely, he had to know something was up, though, considering he stayed back for the day with all of the younger kids.)

When we arrived at the orphanage, he was initially playing an a room with the younger kids - we picked him out right away. . .  SO cute.  I don't think he quit smiling the entire morning.  We brought a new soccer ball for the orphanage so we spent most of the morning outside with him and a few others playing soccer.  OK - by the way I am pretty sure we have soccer star on our hands.  Jack is so excited about this!  We will definitely be getting him on a team when he comes home.

The orphanage got a trampoline last week and our son was showing off some of his skills to us the rest of the morning.  He was doing all kinds of flips which was cute.  (Although now I am just praying that he does not break a bone before he comes home.)  Jack videotaped him on the trampoline and he loved watching the replays of the flips. 

The cutest part of the day was that he was hanging ALL over Jack - he LOVES him.  It was really sweet to see this.  He also was playing with Jack's arm hair which he thought was SO funny.  (Sorry Jack - had to mention this.)

I can't say it enough - we are already SO in love.  We can't wait to show him pictures of our family on Wednesday and tell him that we are MOM AND DAD!

Tomorrow is court - please pray that the judge rules in our favor.

A Special Meeting

Another great day in Ethiopia!  Today we woke up early to travel 4 hours south to a town called Hosanna where our agency had arranged for us to meet again with Joseph's birthmother.  The drive there was beautiful - mountains, grass huts, farmers, animals - rural Ethiopia at its finest!

Upon arrival, we learned that Joseph's birthmother was very tired as she had to walk 4 hours to meet us.  I knew from the last visit that her village was far away, but  what I didn't know was the reason she was so tired from the walk was because she gave birth to TWINS - 20 days ago!!!  Yes - these Ethiopian women are AMAZING.  We learned that she got married soon after we saw her last and we were able to meet her husband who also came along for the visit.  And how cool that Joseph now has a half brother and half sister!  We were very excited for her and felt so blessed that she sacrificed to come and see us.  We brought a photo book of about 50 pictures of Joseph from the last year and it was precious to watch her look at them and kiss the pages.   We also showed her a video of him on our phones. In addition, he made her a picture with his handprints that we gave her that she loved.

I will keep many of the stories and memories private to share with Joseph when he gets older, but I will say that the meeting was SO very special.  We feel blessed that we were able to see her again.

Tomorrow we meet our oldest son - not sure we will sleep tonight!

Yezalelem Minch

After a long flight we arrived this am in Addis Ababa.  The local time was 7:45am so it felt a little bit like we were in residency again and finishing up a 30 hour call. :) Our agency picked us up from the airport and brought us to Morning Coffee Guest House where we stayed during our last two trips as well.  The owners of the guest house run a program called Yezelalem Minch and the money they make from the guest house supports their ministry that serves destitute families in and around Addis Ababa. 

We were certainly tired on arrival, but still wanted to make the most of all of our time here.  So instead, of napping at the guest house we asked if we could pariticipate in the weekly feeding program run by YM.  Each Saturday YM holds three feeding programs throughout the city which provide a hot meal and health education for sponsored children.  The experience was awesome!  And it certainly reminded us of the great need that their is here in Ethiopia.  Our son is from here in the big city so I just kept imagining when I saw boys his age at the program that this may have been him before he went into the orphanage.  Praise God for wonderful Christians like Birtukan and Nesibu who run this program and serve where there is such a great need.

In the afternoon, we actually were able to get in a nap and then we toured the Ethiopian National Museum.  Dinner at the Guest House was great - a nice mix of American and Ethiopian cuisine, and then off to bed.  We are getting up early in the morning to travel to Hosanna to meet with Joseph's birthmother and are very excited about this experience!

Thanks for your prayers during our travel!

Here we go!

Well, we made it to DC last night and are now sitting at Dulles airport anxiously awaiting our flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We are flying Ethiopian airlines which has a direct flight - about 13 hours. Yes - in 13 hours we set foot on African soil!! We are both very excited about all the adventures this next week will hold.

While we do not know all of the details of our itinerary quite yet, there are three events that we know will happen for sure. (1) Sunday we are travelling out of the city and taking a daytrip to meet up with Joseph's birthmother. (We are very excited to have this opportunity as Jack was not able to meet her since we wasn't with me on our last trip.) (2) Monday we will meet our son!!! (3) Tuesday is our court date.

Please join us in prayer specifically for these three events. Pray that God would make his presence known to us during these times. We hope to update our blog while there, but internet is not always reliable so we will see.

Packing Up

We're just a few days away from leaving for Ethiopia. Life has been a bit crazy as we have been preparing. We'll post more about the trip before we leave, but in the meantime here are a few pictures of what we're packing up. . .

A book that we are leaving with our son with pictures of his family, room, house, etc.




Gifts for my mom's and our sponsored children at Yezelalem Minch.



Toys and games to play with the kids in the orphanage when we visit our son.



All the pajamas and socks that YOU have donated!!!! Thank you! More on this later.





And comfort for the VERY LONG plane ride. :)

Court Date!

We found out today that we have been assigned an April 24th court date! This is the day we will appear in court in Ethiopia, and if we pass, the adoption will be finalized at that time. (We won't get to bring him home for several more months, though, until he receives a visa.) Once again - we can't believe how quickly this is happening. Today has been crazy as we have scrambled to make various travel arrangements. It is hard to believe in a few short weeks, we will be meeting our son! We are beyond thrilled.

This also means that our PJ and sock drive has been accelerated a bit. We are now needing to move our deadline up to April 15th (April 18th at the very latest) to give us time to pack things up.

Thanks for celebrating the great news with us!

PJ and Sock Drive Update

Thanks everyone for your support of our drive for AHOPE I have listed below an update of what sizes are still needed. No worries if you have already purchased a size that we already have - we'll still take them. We have just had a lot of people ask what sizes are needed so wanted to update. Again we are happy to pick up donations or you can drop them by our office.

Girls under 5: 2
Girls 12 and up: 9
Boys under 5: 6
Boys 5-12: 12
Boys 12 and up: 22

Thanks again!! We are so excited to be able to provide new pajamas and socks for these children!

Submitted to Court!

We received news this morning that our case has been submitted to the Ethiopian courts. The courts will get back to our agency within the next several weeks with a court date, which will likely be in the next 6-8 weeks. This means will be in Ethiopia meeting our son in the next couple months!!!

WOW! Talk about hitting the fast forward button on things - we were thinking it would be another 6-8 weeks before we found out we were submitted to court. Praise God for this progress.

On another note, we are starting to receive PJs and socks!! Thanks to everyone for your support and I will update soon on where we are at with the numbers.

PJ and Sock Drive

Jack and I have people ask us all the time if there is anything that they can send with us when we visit Ethiopia. Well . . . now you can!! For our upcoming trip, we are collecting donations for AHOPE for Children, a ministry in Ethiopia for children living with HIV.

We are so excited that we are going to get the chance to visit this ministry when we travel to Ethiopia. It is the only place in the country of Ethiopia that cares exclusively for HIV+ children and right now they have about 100 children that are living there. Through the wonderful world wide web, I was able to get into contact with someone from the organization and told them that we would be in Ethiopia in the next few months (no - we don't have a court date, yet). They relayed that the children living there were really in need of new pajamas and socks. I quickly told her that we have it covered!

Would you like to help us with our PJ and sock drive? We would love to provide each of the children with their very own new pair of PJs and socks. Here is the breakdown of the number of children that we are gathering for:

Girls under 5: 2
Girls 5-12: 10
Girls 12 and up: 12
Boys under 5: 7
Boys 5-12: 20
Boys 12 and up: 23

If you would like to donate, just decide above what age range and sex and then either drop them off at my house or clinic, or call and I will pick them up from you!! Remember we need both a pair of pajamas and a few pair of socks for each child. (Let's treat them to new rather than used!) I will update the blog periodically on how many we still need in each age group.

Thanks so much for helping us provide for the children in Ethiopia!!!

Update from Ethiopia

We received an update from our agency in Ethiopia this week about our son. We got some great pictures and a report that everything is going really well. The updates provide everything from social, motor, and language development to who his best friends are, favorite foods, and daily routine. It is exciting to get a glimpse into his life in Ethiopia.

Some of the fun things we learned in the update are that his favorite subject in school is Math, and that he wants to be a professional pilot or professional bicycle rider when he grows up. They also commented again on how much he likes soccer and his impressive artistic ability. We even got a picture of some of his artwork. . .



We can't wait to love on him in person in the months to come. To update you on the process, our dossier is currently in Ethiopia being translated into Amharic. Once that is completed it will be registered and submitted to court, at which time we will be assigned a court date to travel to Ethiopia. We are hoping this will happen in the next 3 months or so. Thanks again for your continued support and prayers.

Celebrating Gotcha Day!

This weekend we celebrated Joseph's Gotcha Day. The Gotcha Day is a day celebrated by many adoptive families to commemorate the day that the adoptive child was placed into the family's home for adoption, in other words, the day the family Gotcha. One year ago Joseph and I stepped off the plane and were reunited with Jack, and our life as a family of three began. We have been blessed in so many ways by our sweet Joseph over the last year, and he has changed so much. It is hard to believe that this shy and reserved boy who would barely make eye contact with us would turn into the spunky, outgoing, and talkative little man that he is today.



To celebrate Gotcha Day we took Joseph along with some friends who were in town out to one of the Ethiopian restaurants for lunch. We also gave him a handmade Ethiopian doll that we bought last year while in Ethiopia. He doesn't know yet, but we bought enough gifts while in Ethiopia so he will have one unique gift from Ethiopia each year on Gotcha Day until age 18. (We also bought him a wedding gift in Ethiopia that we will be able to give him and his wife one day.)



Joseph - we are so proud of how far you have come and the hurdles that you have jumped in the last year! We love you so much, son. Happy Adoption Day!

It's a Boy!

We are so excited to announce that last week our agency matched us with the sweet 8 year old that we had been praying for and eluded to in our last post. We are SO excited and feel so blessed that we will be able to call this child our son. Joseph is very excited, too, about his big brother.

We waited for six long weeks for one last document, the I171H, to come in before our agency could officially match us. We received word from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service on January 23rd that we had been approved and immediately let our agency know. Just a few hours later we received word that we were officially matched!

We let Joseph call our family and tell them the great news - it was so cute to hear him tell them that he was going to have a big brother. We already have lots of pictures of him, too, so it was fun to be able to show him off to the family.

While I can't share a lot of details or any pictures online - I am happy to show him off to you in person. It is crazy, but we think he looks a lot like Joseph. He has big, brown eyes and a sweet smile. We know that he is in school and learning some English, loves to play soccer, and apparently likes to take care of some of the younger children at the orphanage. Perfect since he will have a little brother!

And to make things even more fun, my sister announced that she was pregnant on the same day that we found out! I am so excited that the two of us are getting to share this journey together! Yeah Mandy!

Many of you probably want to know when he will be joining our family - unfortunately it will probably be at least 6 months until he is home. More on the process to get him home in posts to come, but in the meantime thanks for your prayers for our expanding family!

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. 1 Samuel 1:27

Waiting Children

Several months ago I blogged about the changing trends in International Adoption and the great need for adoption of older children and children with special needs. Since that time, Jack and I have been praying about how God would have our second adoption unfold. We have also been praying over the children on our agency's Waiting Children list.

What is this "List" you may be asking? Well, most adoption agencies have a list of children who are harder to find families for due to various reasons. Some of them due to medical conditions, but most for the simple fact that they are older children. Many of the children are between the ages of 4 and 12. Many of them are harder to place JUST because they are older. Some of these children have been in the orphanage waiting to be chosen by a family for years.

Adopting a child from the Waiting Children List is different from most infant international adoptions. For those who wish to adopt an infant, there is often a 1-2 year wait for an infant to be available for adoption. I know this sounds strange considering the estimates that there are millions of orphans in the world. But due to government restrictions and lack of documentation of a child's orphan status, few of them are actually eligible for adoption. Of the children eligible for adoption, many of them are older children or children with special needs. However, most people who are willing to adopt are often only interested in healthy infants, hence many older and special needs children are left waiting.

(I will reiterate as I did in a previous post that this entry is not meant to dissuade anyone from infant adoption. We waited for a 0-2 year old with our first adoption and felt as though that was what we were called to do at that time. As Christians, we are called to adopt and God loves adoption of any kind!)

But this adoption has been different for us. As we prayed over our agency's waiting child list over the past 4 months, we felt as though God had laid a particular child on our hearts. We weren't allowed to be matched with this child until there was some final paperwork that came in. That piece of paperwork, called the I171H, granted permission from our government to adopt an orphan from Ethiopia. After stalking our mailbox for 6 weeks, it finally arrived in the mail last Monday! That same day we asked our agency to officially consider us to be matched with the sweet child we had been praying for on the list.

Stay tuned for more on how this story unfolds. . . .

Melkam Genna!

Melkam Genna means "Merry Christmas" in Amharic - and today is Genna, the day that Ethiopians celebrate the birth of Christ. We were excited to celebrate today with Joseph and decided to treat him to Ethiopian cuisine at one of the local Ethiopian restaurants. We even let him get dressed up in traditional Ethiopian attire.



Of course, this year we were excited to introduce Joseph to some of the American traditions surrounding the celebration of Christ's birth as well. He thought our Santa tradition was pretty fun and enjoyed some fun gifts as well.



He thinks the fact that one of the Wise Men may have come from Ethiopia is pretty cool. We attended a Birthday Party for Jesus in St. Louis and he was able to dress up as the Wise Man bearing frankincense.




And, as you can see behind Joseph, we had 4 stockings hanging this Christmas. The last one we are hoping will be for Joseph's older brother. We have no new news at this time and are still waiting on some paperwork, but hope that we can be matched within the next month or two. We will keep you updated.



Happy Birthday Jesus! Melkam Genna and Merry Christmas!

Inked again

Today we journeyed downtown to have our fingerprints taken in order to obtain approval to adopt from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. This was the SIXTH time that we have had our fingerprints taken since we started the process with Joseph. (Last I checked fingerprints don't change?) Nevertheless, as we have said before - we will do whatever it takes.

Next up, awaiting formal USCIS approval, getting our dossier state sealed, authenticated in Wash DC, and then sent off to Ethiopia. We are getting there.

Blessed

This past week marked one year since we were approved by the Ethiopian court system to adopt Joseph. We had no idea one year ago how much of a blessing that this would be for us. Thank you God for all of these blessings.

Jack put this special tribute together about our adoption process. Hope you enjoy it!

He's getting big!

Joseph had a well child check yesterday and I just had to post his growth chart. It is amazing to see the progress he has made since coming home just over 9 months ago. As you can see he was well below the 5th percentile for weight when he first arrived and now he is up to the 25th percentile! His height has jumped up as well. When he arrived home he had an infection called Giardia in his intestines which probably contributed to his inability to absorb a lot of nutrients. It is awesome, though, to see what good nutrition, treatment of Giardia, and a little TLC can do! Hopefully this will encourage some of my friends who are in the adoption process currently. :)

Homestudy complete!

We feel like we are finally making some progress on our second adoption, as we recently received approval for our homestudy. The next step is to submit the homestudy to US immigration services to get approval to adopt internationally. Once this is complete we will be able to submit all of our paperwork (the dossier) to Ethiopia.

Something that we haven't shared with everyone, yet, is the fact that our homestudy has been approved to adopt a child 4 through 9 years of age! We have prayed fervently over the last few months about this and feel led to proceed in this direction. We know that there will be plenty of challenges that will come along with adopting an older child and adopting out of birth order, but we also know that there will be many blessings.

We look forward to sharing more about this unique journey back to Ethiopia in the days to come. . .

DJ Lance in the House

Happy Halloween from DJ Lance!

The Changing Face of International Adoption

This week I read an article about the changing trends in international adoption. Jack and I have been praying about our next adoption and what path God would lead us on, so I was certainly struck by what I read. The article talked about how the faces of international adoption are changing - from faces of babies to faces of older children. Faces of boys, not girls. And faces with special needs including underlying medical conditions.

It is becoming easier, in many countries that allow international adoption, to find an international family to adopt a healthy baby. In addition, the article stated that the growing economies and better social acceptance for domestic adoption in foreign countries has lead to more children being able to stay in their home country. Praise God for this!! With these and other changes and trends in adoption, however, many children with special needs and older children have been left waiting in line to be adopted.

Anecdotally, this seems to be the case with our agency as well. There is a waiting list of Americans who are waiting for a young, healthy 0-2 year old child to be available for adoption, while older children, some with special needs have been sitting in orphanages waiting for months, sometimes years for a family to adopt them.

Please don't get me wrong here. I am not insinuating that it is wrong to adopt a younger or healthy child (we did just last year), but as we have asked God to allow His will to be done in our lives, our hearts have been opened to possibly something different with this adoption.

Would you take a second to pray for all of God's children who are waiting for their forever families? In particular, would you pray that God would continue to reveal His perfect plan to our family?

Summer of Fun

Summer of 2011 has treated us well - we are so sad it has come to an end. Here is a taste of some of the fun that we had!

We started the summer with a fun Kentucky Derby Party - my date was the best!



Several trips to the Lake!




Exploring the trains at the Museum of Transportation.



Learning how to play golf.



Lots of swimming.



A trip to the most magical place on Earth . . .




And most importantly - our first MU Football game!!