First day of school

1st grade

5th grade

voted most memorable...

To adequately describe this vacation, I thought I would start with a picture of the end.  Here we are completely soaked, storm voucher tickets in hand, and NiNi is sobbing. This may be the last time Chris lets me plan a vacation.  Back in May I had the idea of renting one of the rustic cabins in Brown County.  You may recall that Chris refuses to tent camp (something I enjoy immensely).  I thought the rustic cabin idea would satisfy us both.  Cute little cabin in the woods but still with access to real beds, toilet and a shower.  I forgot to read the fine print that these cabins allow any number or variety of pets.  Ours reeked of wet dog and body odor.  Don't think the bedding had been washed in quite some time either.  Humidity was about 100%.  Think big smelly sauna.  We spent 2 days there and halfheartedly attempted some hiking.  Then onto the most anticipated part of the vacation:  Holiday World.  It was drizzling a bit on our way there but I felt faithful that it would clear up.  And even if it didn't, the pop up showers would be refreshing in the heat of the day.  The big kids enjoyed a couple of roller coasters and then we headed over to the water park.  I left our wagon full of belongings (all of our belongings I might add- towels, dry clothes, shoes, etc).  over by some lawn chairs and we got in line for one of the water coasters. What ensued was definitely not a pop up shower.  Not a regular shower or even a thunderstorm.  It was a monsoon.  Before the rain even started they shut down the rides.  We had a pretty good place in line so decided to wait it out.  When it started raining harder, Ethan and I bailed to get ice cream while Chris waited with the girls.  As Ethan and I walked back from the ice cream stand, the winds and heavy rain started.  Stuff was blowing over and the storm sirens were going off.  We literally had to take shelter in a little room that housed lockers.  For one hour.  I had no idea where Chris and the girls were because none of us had our phones.  Once the rain subsided I went to look for our wagon.  The water park was under about 2 feet of water and our wagon was literally floating in one of the concession areas.  I might add that the temperature had dropped to about 60 degrees and we were soaking wet.  Needless to say everything in the wagon was also wet.  For the next hour we looked for Chris and the girls.  Once we all realized that any hope of being dry anytime soon was gone, it kind of sucked the life out of the rest of the afternoon.  That and all the rides were shut down due to lightning strikes in the area.  We looked like sad little drown rats exiting the park.  NiNi was by far the saddest since she had been looking forward to this trip for months.  I thought taking the picture of us would be funny.  But when she burst into tears it just felt cruel!  

Last November I was approached about writing and gathering content for a "Forever Families" blog on the Disciples Today website.  It was something that fell into my lap and honestly was such a great match for my interests, passion, abilities, etc.  Since then, the small amount of time and creativity I possess has been funneled into that, and attention to this blog has been severely lacking.  June 10th we celebrated Mayah's birthday with our annual balloon messages.  This piece that I am posting on Disciples Today was sort of born out of that and I thought I'd share it here:)

Bird's Eye View

I have a clematis vine that climbs the outside of our screened-in porch.  Unfortunately, from the inside we can’t see the beautiful flowers, only bare vines and a few green leaves.  Not very pretty, but it does a nice job of blocking the view of a busy road.  Awhile back I noticed a couple of cardinals spending more than their fair share of time on the vine.  Then a nest snuggled in its branches.  And most recently, two sparsely feathered babies, instinctively craning their necks toward an invisible food source.  So tiny and magical.  The kids set up a little viewing stool on the porch and starting referring to them as “the babies”.  And suddenly from our side of the screen we were no longer staring at bare twigs, we had a birds-eye view of miraculous.

Where we live, it’s rare to get a peek inside nature like that.  It can feel even rarer to get a peek inside God’s thoughts and plan for our lives.  We know God is good and loving and wise, but we’re often at a loss to understand his loving plan, especially when it includes suffering.   Deaths are particularly difficult in that respect.   This March marked the 9-year anniversary of the death of our daughter, Mayah.  We were in the process of adopting her.  China had sent us her referral almost a year prior.  In the meantime, we had completed mountains of paperwork, sent letters and care packages, filled her closet with clothes, and plastered her pictures all over our refrigerator (not to mention our friends’ refrigerators.)  We were head-over-heels in love.  Then she died suddenly, about 3 weeks before we were set to travel.  We never got to hold her, hear her voice, nor in many ways even properly mourn her death. In 25 years of being a Christian, that may have been the closest I’ve come to leaving God.  Not storming off in a rage, just quietly succumbing to the deep mistrust that was brewing in my heart.

Thankfully, I had lots of people in my life who helped me to hang on.  And lately, God has been giving me my own glimpses into the miraculous. Those Holy Spirit nudges that help us make sense of God’s plan.  What I discovered was this:  Somewhere along the way, a cosmic shift had happened in mine and my husband’s lives.  Early in our marriage, adoption was a means to an end (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that).  But after Mayah’s death, we went from desperately wanting a child-- wanting to fill OUR need-- to feeling a passion to meet others’ needs.  Mayah taught us that every child deserves to know what it feels like to be loved and to be safe, even if it’s only for a short time.   Because when kids are loved and safe, they can focus on other things.  Things like playing and learning and eventually maybe even seeking our creator.  Wouldn’t that be something?

Those baby birds are almost big enough to leave the nest.   I saw one perched precariously on the edge the other day.  Our family is also about to start a new adventure as our social worker stamps “approved” on our brand-spanking-new foster parent license.  When you’ve adopted a couple kids and want to foster a couple more, people generally think you are either crazy, or a saint.  We are a little bit crazy, but trust me, we are far from saints.  We complain, we argue, we yell at our kids from time to time.  There were days, soon after Mayah’s death, that I wished we had not loved her.  Wished we had not wanted her or even known her.  I was convinced that God could have spared me a lot of unnecessary heartache.  But not anymore.  Now I feel sure of just a few more things than when we started this journey.  Sure that the “fatherless” are meant to be a huge part of our personal ministry.  Sure that God used our daughter’s life (possibly considered of little value by many) to ignite a passion in us that we didn’t know existed.  And sure that she is still making an impact today.  

Funnies

Ethan was talking the other day about when he grows up, moves away and gets married.  For a long time he said he wanted to marry mom, so I reminded him, "Ethan, I thought you were going to marry me!?"  He sweetly patted me on the back and said, "Mommy, you already HAVE a daddy"

We were at the oil change place the other day and NiNi read the sign on the bathroom said "Uni-sex" (emphasis on "sex").  She looked surprised and said, "Well I am NOT going in there!"

This is how spiritual my children are.  I have a weekly bible study/donut date with Meagan each Friday morning.  I asked NiNi the other day, since she is getting older, would she like to have a special bible study date with me each week.  She said, "Let's not start that yet mom, I want to enjoy my life a little bit longer"

Somehow the topic of Solomon's one thousand wives came up and NiNi said, "That's a lot of wives to die" (Like he married each one in succession).  I said, "No, one thousand wives at the same time!) Then she said, "Oh I get it!  Sister wives!"

Growing up

Trying to get a good shot of the 3 of them for a Father's Day gift...

Happy adoption day

9 years ago today!  NiNi and I got to hang out most of the day together, then go out for Thai food as a family and watch her adoption day videos.  Love this girl!  

Happy girl

Celebratory shake on the last day of school.  Meagan had a rough last trimester of freshman year.  Three tough classes (including honors Geometry, which she had no business taking).  She had been sick off and on the past month and the week before finals was diagnosed with mono.  My kids have to be pretty sick in order for me to take them to the doctor, but a couple of golf ball sized lymph nodes got us there in a hurry.  In spite of feeling crummy, with finals over and summer ahead, she's a pretty happy camper.