I have a favor to ask. I am not going to go into any details, but please be praying for Kyle. He is making a very poor choice right now. Please be praying for safety and the Lords guidance. Pray that this choice will open his eyes and also strengthen his relationship with the Lord. I would very much appreciate your prayers. Thanks

There is a new movie that will hit theatres this month. It is a horror movie that will have awful ramifications on adoption. I was made aware of a grassroots campaign that is trying to curb the affects this movie will have. I hope that you will check it out. You can read the synopsis of the movie at
http://www.moviefone.com/movie/orphan/32213/synopsis?flv=1
then go to
http://www.orphansdeservebetter.com/ (I can't get the links to work so you'll have to cut and paste) to sign the petition to Warner Brothers that will try and convince them to contribute a portion of the profits from this movie to aid orphans across America and around the world and hopefully convince them to also convey a message to the public that counteracts the message that their film will portray. If you are an adoptive parent you can also write about your adoption story to help others see that adoption is a beautiful thing and not the horrible life that this movie makes it out to be. I believe that the children who are waiting for homes deserve for us all to try and make a difference

Wow, I have been EXTREMELY bad about posting lately. I can't believe it has been 2 months since I wrote anything. How horrible is that? Well, It has been a busy couple of months. Until the last couple weeks none of it had been noteworthy though, just day to day life. But....Last weekend Kyle turned 18. I just CANNOT believe that is possible. It does NOT seem like that much time could have possibly passed since he was born. I don't know where it all went. For his birthday he wanted to go to Portland and skate at the DOS (Department of skateboarding) so we took a friend with him and went to Portland for the weekend. We dropped the boys off and they skated all day saturday and sunday. Darren, I and Ash went and bummed around Lloyd center and a few other places. It was fun. I will try to upload some pictures later. I would right now, but I am having an error on the card. Hopefully Kyle has already saved the videos and pictures off of it. Friday I took off for the day by myself (well, not actually by myself, but without children at least. I can't tell you the last time I went anywhere without at least 1 child being with me). A bunch of us loaded up the car and headed over to Puyallup for the WHO (Washington homeschool organization) convention. It was GREAT. If you are considering homeschooling or homeschool in Washington but haven't made it over there yet, I can't say enough good things about this convention. If you can go next year it would be so worth it. I was able to find almost all of the curriculum I need for next year for both of the kids. I still have a couple more subjects that I need to decide what I want to use, but I am thrilled to have most of it figured out. The other day we went to the park. There is a big group that gets together every week and the kids run and play. It is great for all of them, plus good for me because I get some adult interaction other than my husband
:-). That is SOOOO nice. I will try to be better at posting and not wait so long in between. I hope everyone has a great day.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter. We went to church, went to lunch, then came home and hunted for eggs. Some of Ashleigh's friends came over. They came armed with real eggs (something I wasn't aware of), and one of them was in her room playing while the rest were outside. A while later Kyle asks "what's that smell"? After we did some searching we found that one of her friends had peeled the eggs and they were crumbled ALL over her room. The only thing I can say is it was YUCKY.!!!!! I spent most of the evening cleaning it up. :( I guess that's what I get for not watching them, I knew better with these kids. It has been a wierd couple of weeks around here. In the last 2 weeks we have had a lot of days that were cold, we've had hail the size of peas, a snowstorm of EXTREMELY large snow flakes (but nothing stayed) and some warm days (one at about 90 degrees). No wonder Ash and I have been so sick lately. I HATE the cold, but this back and forth weather is killing me. I wish it would stay one way or the other (preferably warm). But at least when it is continually cold I can be prepared. Today we went to soccer. We live a long ways from where she plays and when we left home it was not hot by any means, but felt fine. By the time we got there we realized just how COLD it was there. It was like 54 degrees, which is not bad but the wind was FREEZING. We had not came prepared with sweaters or anything so it was miserable. I guess at this point I am going to have to make a stash of extras in the cars just in case. I guess that I should finish up my Florida posts and pictures since it has already been a month since we came home. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY miss Florida. I miss the beach. I miss our friends. It was the first time we had seen eachother since China and we picked up like it had been no time at all :-) I miss how well kept the town was and driving down the road and not having to look at grafitti everywhere. I would love to be able to go and see DisneyWorld, Universal Studios and all the other cool things that we didn't have time to see. I miss the beach and... Oh yes....I miss the beach. I also miss being able to order good sweet tea when we go out to eat. I have never been a tea fan but while we were in Florida I tried sweet tea for the first time. I LOVED it. You can't get it many places around here and the couple I have found aren't as sweet so I was not real thrilled. I am becoming an expert on making it. I finally have found the right combination to make it how I like it. Yaaa. Guess it's a little better for me than Pepsi. On the monday we were there we went to SeaWorld. It was so fun. We got to pet the Stingray and Dolphins. The Stingrays were funny because they where going in circles around their pool and as they went by they were slapping the side like they were saying "pet me". I have never seen anything quite like it. Dolphins have always been my absolute favorite so it was really neat to be able to feed and pet them. I LOVED that part of the trip. I wish I could go back and do it again. We watched great shows (which I already talked about so I won't bore you with any more details). When we were traveling back from Orlando I was looking out the window at the night sky. I was amazed at how clear and bright it was. I could see stars everywhere. I have never seen such a beautiful sky. On tuesday (the last day we were there) we went back to the beach. This time we went to a different spot. The water was much calmer and it was SOOOO warm. It was like stepping in a warm bath. I was just amazed by the temperature. You'd walk into the water and wouldn't get that moment of shock where you feel cold while your body is adjusting to it. I love going to the beach in Washington and Oregon, but you DEFINATLY have that (quite a few) moments where your body has to adjust to it, because it is very beautiful but not at all warm. I loved playing in the Atlantic Ocean because I love to be at (and in) the ocean, but I hate to be cold in any way, shape or form. I am so thankful that summer is almost here and once it hits the high 80's or the 90's I will be happy (until fall). Ash has been playing soccer. They don't yet understand how the game is really played, but they are fun to watch anyway. Some times she will really get in there and try hard. Other times she's in La La land. But she has a blast. We recently went to a follow up appointment at Shriner's. Ashleigh's next surgery will be in about 6 to 8 months. They will work on the muscles in her lip and work on fixing the one nostril so it looks more rounded. Right now from the stretching the other lip surgery required it is pretty flattened. They said this surgery is not really a big deal at all. We will stay 1 night just because we have to travel so far to get there. If we lived closer it would have been an outpatient surgery. When she turns 7 they will begin monitoring her more to figure out when they will do the bone graft. I am not looking forward to that one. That one will be very difficult for her. I hope that everyone has a great day.

Easter

Ashleigh getting her Easter basket (Tinker Bell costume)



Trying on her costume



Searching for eggs








Our Hail storm
(it doesn't show very well just how big they were, but you get the idea)




SeaWorld

I thought this picture turned out really cool



Petting the stingrays


Making mad faces











Second beach trip

When we got to the beach the first thing we saw was this guy crawling around



It looks like she is sitting on the water















Soccer








This is Ashleigh and Hope. Hopes parents will be flying out soon to bring their 4 year old son home from Ethiopia. They could really use your prayers for safe travel and adjustments. Thanks.

We are home, obviously. I am having a reminder of why I loved Florida :-) It is the first day of April and SNOWING. It is NOT supposed to snow in April!!!!!!!

Well, I guess I should update my blog since I haven't really done that since we got here.

I am in love!!!!! I DO NOT want to go home, this place is so me. I LOVE everything about it (ok maybe not everything....the idea of hurricanes doesn't do much for me, but beside that I love it here). I love not feeling cold all the time, I love not having to scrape the windows and having to let the car warm up for so long before we can go anywhere...especially since I am ALWAYS running late before we even get to that point, I love that there are things to do here. I LOVE being this close to the beach and only a couple hours from the theme parks. It's GREAT here. I am sure it has it's negatives as everywhere does, but I LOVE it. Anyway we have been having a great time. It is beautiful to see Ash and Mikala laughing and playing together, they are such a great sight. SOOO different then they where when they met in China. Friday we spent the day at the beach. It was overcast and at times a little chilly, but was still a lot of fun. Bobby and I ended up really sunburned, but everyone else came out of it ok. We collected seashells (something Ash LOVES to do), we had tons of birds circling us when we tried to eat lunch. You could tell that they were plotting how they were going to get the sandwiches out of our hands. At first Ash wasn't sure about going out in the water, but eventually went out and was good as long as she could hold onto daddy's hand. That evening we went to a Chinese buffet for our "Gotcha Day" dinner and to some fountains to get a family photo. Saturday we were going to go to Universal studios, but when we went out to leave it was raining. Let me just say that when it rains here it REALLY rains. It was raining so hard the windshield wipers couldn't keep up, so we decided we were not going to attempt it since we are not used to driving in that. So we just stayed here and went to a movie, got the boys haircuts, did a little shopping, and just kind of bummed around. Sunday we went to church and then spent the afternoon at the park. Sue invited a bunch of people, so the kids all had a BLAST together. Yesterday we drove to Orlando. We decided on SeaWorld and had so much fun. The shows are amazing. We saw one...Clyde & Seamore Take Pirate Island (The evening show. We were told it is different then the day one). It was HILARIOUS, I have not laughed that much in a long time. It was great. If you are going to SeaWorld any time soon make sure you check that one out. It is so funny. Shamu's Believe was a beautiful show too. Today I don't know what we are doing. We will have to do a little bit of laundry and get things ready to go. We have to leave here pretty early tomorrow morning to catch our flight. I am going to cry when I leave :-)


Practicing gymnastics


Singing and dancing on stage


Running and playing hard


Beautiful girl!!!!


Family picture

Our family at the beach


Mikala and Ashleigh


Together again after 3 years




Gwen, Mikala and Ashleigh


Ash and Bobby




Having fun in the ocean


Gwen and Ash became really good friends





The birds plotting to steal our food







Miss Mikala building sand castles

3 years

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary since we became a family of 5 (and my birthday-I won't tell ya which one though). It is hard to believe that it has already been 3 years because it feels like it has gone in the blink of an eye. Ash is doing amazing. She speaks so clearly now, she's grown so HUGE, and has an attitude to match. At the moment we are sitting in a hotel in Florida. We got here EARLY this morning (well, at least by this time zone, it was still only around 10pm at home) We came down to celebrate with our friends that we met in China. This will be the first time we have seen them since we were in China and I am so excited to see them again. I am so enjoying the beautiful Florida sun and warmth. We will get to stay here for a week and check out the sights, then it'll be back to home. I'll take a week!!!!

Las Vegas

For his graduation Kyle wanted to go to Vegas. He has some friends who live there that he really wanted to see. So we all took a trip to Vegas. I have NEVER had any desire to go there, but it was neat to see all the hotels(we weren't there long enough to see all of them and I guess that some of the ones we missed are spectacular). To say that Caesars Palace is amazing would not even come close. There is a mall connected to the hotel called the "Forum Shops", we walked and walked and still did not see all of it. The sad thing is that this one mall is bigger than the only mall we have at home, and there are lots more like it there. Some how I got food poisoning or something because I was SOOOO sickmost of the time we were there, but it didn't seem to be a flu or a cold, so I think it was something else. We did have fun, but I don't expect that we will be going back any time soon (although if Kyle had his way we would, actually if he had his way we would probably move there. Can ya say...not happening :)

speech on abortion

I was just brought to this speech from a news article I was reading. It is amazing that such a well thought out speech could come from someone so young. This little girl has it so right.



the news article I was reading about itcan be found at.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=425610