Celebration!!

It's been a busy and eventful past few weeks. We have had much to celebrate, all of which included the following....

Ella's birthday!

Ella turned 8 recently and we headed to her favorite restaurant to celebrate. We were joined by a good portion of the family to help us have a good time!

If you want to see Ella eat and ask for more, take her here!

Ella on the phone with Uncle Thom

Ice cream at Graeter's

We headed to Graeter's for some ice cream after Emily had finished a soccer tournament on hot and sunny Sunday afternoon. We weren't really celebrating anything in particular at the time but it appears as if Graeter's was! They had all types of things going on at the store including face painting. We were in no hurry and so allowed Ella and David to get their faces painted.

Monarch Butterflies

I planted some milkweed this past spring in the hopes of attracting Monarch butterflies to my garden. It appears my plan worked. In late July I was happily surprised to find several monarch butterfly caterpillars happily munching away on my milkweed. I was also able to find an egg but since then the caterpillars have disappeared and I have yet to find a cocoon. Hmmmmm.......

An adult monarch on the milkweed plant!

The tiny white spot in the middle is the egg!

Some of the caterpillars!

A weekend getaway

Jason and I were able to join 14 other friends this past weekend and go to Gatlinburg to celebrate our friend Shane turning 30. We rented a chalet for 3 nights and had a good time hanging out, shopping, hiking, and being kid free.

The first night we were there Jason and Shane were cleaning up at the end of the evening (3 am, guess that's technically the morning) and Jason happened to open the front door to the chalet to find a large black bear on the front porch! Jason quickly closed the door and told Shane about the bear and the two of them woke myself and Shane's wife up to show us the bear. It was exciting to see the bear (from the safety of the interior of the house). What was unfortunate was what attracted the bear to us, Jason's cornhole bags. We had brought down with us our cornhole set and the bags got left out with the set. Apparently the bear found the bags to be good eating because he ended up ripping into three of the eight of them that night. We did have three other bear sightings during our trip, each around the house and all involving the cornhole bags! Now we know the secret to attracting the bears!

The second night we were there we all got dressed up to "party like it was 1979"! In costume we headed down into Gatlinburg to the Hard Rock Cafe and had a good time hanging out front of the restaurant drawing stares and comments from those passing by. Once inside the staff at the restaurant played "YMCA" in our honor and we did a conga line to that song all through the restaurant. We had people up joining us from their tables and kids dancing on the floor, it was a blast!

Jason was wearing his father's wedding tux!

The hat was not a part of the original outfit.






The guys!




The girls!

The next day we took a hike. The majority of us went and did the Alum Cave Bluf trail. I found out exactly how out of shape I am and am still feeling the "burn" in my back end. It was a beautiful trail and was worth the effort.

My birthday!

Although no pictures were taken at my birthday party last night (ah-hem, Jason did not take them) I did have a good time with my family. I spent the majority of the day of household chores and discovered that this is just about as exciting as a birthday gets at this age. I did however get a Wii Fit (which I bought for myself) for my birthday and I have yet to touch it! Emily has been on it several times and I find myself thinking, "Hmmm, that looks like fun, I should try it." Ella and David like getting involved too, here's a cute photo of the kids all doing Wii Fit yoga together!

Emily made the JV soccer team!!!

We are celebrating today having just found out that after a "grueling" (according to Emily) summer of soccer conditioning and camps and try outs yesterday that Emily made the high school JV girls soccer team! Jason and I are very proud of her efforts and now look forward to a fall filled with soccer! Go Emily!!!!!

Paperwork, FINISHED!!!

On the adoption front we have something to celebrate too! We finished the mountain of paperwork we had to get done and put together. We will have our first homestudy interview this coming Sunday. After that point we have to send in our remaining paperwork (already done) into our agency and then wait for them to process it, translate it and send it to Ethiopia to be taken care of. This will take awhile and we're hoping the step after that includes a referral of a child to us! We are still very excited about adopting a child and can't wait to see what God has in store for us as a family! We appreciate all the support and prayers that we have received and would ask that you would continue to keep us and our future child in your prayers.

We are hoping that you look around and see that we have much to celebrate, the big and the small. May God be glorified in our celebrating!

Our July

Summer is flying by for us, as it usually does, and as a result I haven't posted for almost a month! We've been busy, here's what has been going on!

Emily has been busy getting up early several days each week for soccer conditioning. She is not thrilled with this fact but is putting in her time is hoping to make a high school soccer team in early August. I saw this comic and think it accurately describes the morning battle in our household.

In the last frame the mother is asking "Scrambled or fried?" Jeremy (the teenager) responds "I'm willing to bet it's against the Geneva Conventions to wake someone up before ten during summer vacation."

We went to "the land" for the July 4th weekend and had a very rainy time. Despite this fact we were able to relax and go "hunting' for crayfish and salamanders.

We have been frequenting the library and participating in their reading program this summer. Ella has become quite the avid reader and she has taken to reading to both herself and to David so that they both earn "points" toward the prizes offered. Ella got so many that she was given the following sign to put in our yard!

Nearby we have friend/neighbors/fellow church members who are also adopting from Ethiopia. They are a lot further along in their journey and will be hopefully going to Ethiopia very soon to pick up their new 11 year old daughter, Hannah. They had a fundraiser during two weekends in July offering pony rides, a car wash and a bake sale to help cover the enormous cost of their adoption. We were happy to participate and lend our support to them by stopping over and joining in the fun!

Last but not least was our vacation this summer. We headed to Kelley's Island in Lake Erie with my best friend Jennie and her family. We spent six days and five nights camping and had a wonderful time together! Except for the thunderstorm and a few showers the first night and morning that we were there, the weather couldn't have been more ideal. Highs were in the upper 60's or lower 70's and the lows were in the upper 50's or lower 60's. It is such a blessing that our families get along so well. Our time together was just long enough that we felt like we could relax and short enough that I only had to miss one day of work!

I have a slide show running at the top of the page with the photos from our trip (there are 326 of them, so it's a long slide show)!

Some of the activities we enjoyed while on Kelley's Island included....

*Hikes in the woods

*Swimming in the lake

*Fishing on the dock

*Looking for LEWS (Lake Erie Water Snakes), that are ONLY on Kelley's island

*Cooking over the campfire

*Playing games

*Exploring the small town

*Visiting Inscription Rock (has engravings from Native Americans from long ago)

*Visiting the Glacial Grooves (places where you can see how the glaciers of the ice age left huge track marks in the rocks)

*Just enjoying one another's company!

Until our next post, enjoy your summer!!!

Two Years and Going Strong

This is our two year anniversary blog update!

It's hard to believe that I've been doing this for two years already but in another way it just seems a part of my routine. I enjoy blogging, it's my version of scrapbooking. It is fun to go back and look at old posts and it helps to remind me of how we've grown as a family.

Speaking of growing as a family, Jason and I are in the beginning stages of adopting a child from Ethiopia! We have kept this news quiet for awhile just in case we felt a change of heart or if something came up to prevent us from this adventure. God made it clear to us over the past year and a half that this was the path He has called us to walk together as a family and we are eager to see what He has in store for us! We will update you through the blog as we continue on but at this moment we are wading through a sea of paperwork and official documentation and education that is required before we move on in our process.

We started out our summer with Vacation Bible School at our church. I volunteered on my days off and worked in the nursery with my mom. Emily volunteered and helped with the missions portion of the program. Both Ella and David attended and had a wonderful time! The Thursday evening of that week the children put on a program to show the parents what they had been learning all week and also performed a few songs. David went up to the front of the church, reluctantly, with the younger children and instead of singing spent the entire time sitting on the floor acting embarrassed. Ella on the other hand had a great time performing with the school aged kids!

Father's Day weekend we had a get together at my parent's house. My sisters, their husbands and children were also in attendance and we had fun time swimming and celebrating the fathers in our lives.

Hey Thom! Does this look familiar?!

The high flying Smelly boys!

This past week, Emily spent six days at a local camp volunteering and helping with the children there. The camp brings in inner city kids and puts on a camp for them and also lets them know the truth about God and how they need Him in their lives.

Emily and some of her girls

Meanwhile, Ella and David and I went to a nearby park that also includes a water play area and had a good time playing. The fun only lasted until some other child threw up in the water area and it had to close down for over a half hour while they cleaned up the mess and cycled the water through without anyone in it.

We had a busy Saturday this past weekend. We spent the day along with Jason's family having a garage sale! We had never done this before but it was great to go through the house and declutter and get rid of a lot of things that just didn't serve any purpose for us anymore. The sale was at Jason's parent's house which, if you ask me, was an ideal spot for a garage sale. They have a large tree in the front yard that kept us shaded all day! I was amazed at how many people showed up to the sale when it was scheduled to end! I guess people were just looking for a deal and believe me they got a deal! We made out pretty well with the sale of our "junk" and afterwards loaded up our trailer with the leftover and took them all to Goodwill.

Jason's sister showing off our wares

Emily keeping track of the money (and eating our merchandise)

We've had an end to a lot of activities lately but it doesn't seem that things are going to slow down any. The soccer season ended for Emily but she will be attending soccer conditioning and camps this summer in preparation for trying out for the high school team in August. School ended for everyone but I plan on having everyone still reviewing as much as possible in order to keep all the learning that was done this past school year from oozing out their ears over the summer.

As I mentioned, school ended, and as a result we had another ceremony to attend. Emily had a "promotion ceremony" for her eighth grade class. My parents, David and I attended this and got a preview of just how involved her high school graduation will be. Thankfully the ceremony did not take long but it did take over 30 minutes to read through all 360 students' names, ugh!

To start off the summer, Emily had a makeup party! We invited some of her friends over to learn how to properly apply make up and how to take care of their skin. Unfortunately I don't have much knowledge of makeup application so I thought we could both learn together and have a good time doing it!

The girls after having put on their makeup!

Ella joined in the fun and after having her aunt put makeup on her she looked in the mirror and said "I look goooood!"

We decided to change up our scenery this past weekend and went downtown to enjoy the park by the river. The younger two had a good time looking at the river and playing at the playground, making friends with whoever they happened to meet.

I love this shot!

My mom shared a story with me about something Ella said this past week. They were driving along and were watching a string of cars go past and my mom referred to them as a parade. Shortly they turned onto the same street as the "parade" and joined in the line of cars at which time Ella said "Now we're the clown car!" You never know what will come out of the mouth of young ones!

I'll leave you with a few snapshots of my garden, taken earlier this week. I would love to share it in person with anyone interested! Gardening is my hobby. Jason has his cars, and I have my flowers. Until next time!