Summer Time fun...

Valiant effort at family pic...that is all we can say...

Fun "end-of-the-season" tourney for the boys...lost all 3 games & still had a lot of fun! Very high scoring event...29 to 26 :)

Cheering section...

Cute kids...

Free face painting at the grocery store (this was a monkey)

Sister Bear

A favorite thing to do at Grandpa & Grandma's

Lots of water fun

Just the beginning of birthday celebrations...its not till August!

They had been dreaming of doing a Lemonade Stand...they had fun, drank A LOT of their own lemonade & made $2.50 each :)

The rest of the 4th of July fun

Happy 4th of July!!!

We have had a really fun 4th of July weekend, lots of friends here to celebrate, fireworks last night, parade this morning & an attempt to set off some firecrakers tonight! The highlight of the parade were about 20 unicyclists in descending heights (couldn't get them all in the pic) but they were very cool!

Thankful for the fun and the blessings of the weekend...so much to celebrate with our great country's freedom! God bless America, land that I love!

Easy idea to do for others AND fun Guatemalan lunch

In addition to ALL the shoes that were so easily collected for Ethiopia (see post below), we also did a SCHOOL SUPPLY collection for the inner-city near us. The response was tremendous. We just had some notices go out in the usual school e-mails & put a box in the front of our public school (again with great support from our principal). Families dropped off any extra supplies (stickers, markers, crayons, paper, coloring books..)...anything in good condition. And we had the priviledge of bringing those to the inner city school who's students do not have all this stuff to play with over the summer. The inner city school was super appreciative. It is so great to get to connect our "extra" with someone who thinks its "special". We also left the box open at the end of the school year for any supplies parents didn't want at home...we plan to distribute those also for summer-time fun for more inner city kids.

So all of this brought us near a Guatemalan restaurant (in daylight hours). It was the 1st time we have had Guatemalan food since we were there picking up Zach. (and no, it does NOT taste like Mexican, but it super delicious also) The smells & tastes brought back so many good memories. The restaurant was decorated great, very clean (bonus for me :), and the food was outstanding!
Zach loved everything he tried & was so proud of being there. We were totally loving ourselves too...he said at some point "are you so happy I was from Guatemala so you could eat here?" We are sooo happy he is from Guatemala!!! I proudly told the waitress that he was from Guatemala, she said she already could tell. It was authentic Guatemalans running the restaurant (very limited English) but very hard workers!Zach's favorite was getting to drink pop from the bottle!

Guatemalan tableclothes
And they had an amazing wall with so many pictures on it, bringing back so many memories, it was so fun to get to talk about them with Zach! We missed BJ because he was at school, but we will look forward to going back again!!!!

Somebody that loves Jesus most of all...

When the kids ask about how people know who to marry...I usually say that you should look for someone that loves Jesus most of all.

It is my priviledge to married to this guy & its amazing how his role of father falls right in place. We are so thankful for the amazing Christian heritage we have from both of our fathers & I love getting to see this daily around this house!

As for the picture, it is the day Ellyana came home..I love it because you can see a "proud papa" in his eyes...and he feels this way about each of our kids! What a blessing!!

Happy Father's Day, love!

It REALLY was all 1 day...the last day of school!!!!

Yesterday was the last day of school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We may have the latest "summer break" of any school I have heard of, but don't worry these have not been "heavy" on academics weeks...lots of fun stuff for the kids...yesterday topped it all off! BJ's sweet 2nd grade teacher this year has journeyed with us & we have no doubt God is the One the had her in his path! She loves the Lord & she loved the kids. BJ's grade had a "bowling party with pizza" followed by an ice cream party later in the day. BJ's bumper bowling score 101 :)

Zach's class had a "Beach Party"...slip n slide, sprinkler, freezy pops, pizza...they had so much fun!!!

His class has grown up soooo much over the year, its hard to believe it is even the same class...and kids from around the world in his class...he's had a great experience!His teacher did a fantastic job with this class & we are thankful Zach had her this year!
After the "countdown" & screaming to end the year...we came home & this big guy "crashed" (never seen this before)...

Then it was off to BJ's game & then Zach's T-ball game, where he was "Player of the Game"...he's quick, he's got a swing & he LOVES baseball...And well, Sister she did OK...here she is at the end of the day, with a Dum-Dum sucker...that's how we make it through big days...and she did get treated to a babysitter in the afternoon so she could sleep at home ;)

The boys really have had a good year, so they weren't really dying for summer break...but I was...I have missed them EVERYday they have been gone at school, our kids are JOYS to be with & I will not miss the "running" & schedule of school. We do keep busy in the summer but we are hoping for LOTS of relaxing too!

HAPPY SUMMER, FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shoes Galore-y..455 pairs to Ethiopia!!!!!

What does that many shoes look like? THIS...its a beautiful sight!!!!

Almost 2 years for a dream to come true...

People ask what did I think about "Ethiopia" when we went to pick up Ellyana...

*It was beautiful country with amazingly beautiful people (inside & out).

I could go on & on about this one.

*And well, the poverty is unbelieveable.

*But what shook me so much in all of this, were huge number of people without shoes.

There they were with objects on their feet to try to make a makeshift shoes.

Sore feet.

Little kids trying to walk in big men's shoes.

People with so little money they stopped at road side stands to try to repair

cheap worn-out flip-flops.

People trudging far for water with such swollen feet and legs from no shoes.

Oh, we had packed as many donations as we could...but my heart ached to have suitcases full of shoes to hand out to all these people. Just to make their daily life better.

A friend did a "Soles for Jesus" drive & this got me excited...this organization had seen the same thing in Ethiopia & that is their heart to donate shoes to the

orphanages, hospitals & street children in Ethiopia.

"Soles for Jesus" http://www.solesforjesus.org/ has information for public place shoe drives. So with prayer, I talked with our public school principal to do a shoe drive at our elementary school. He was excited, wanted the Student Council to do the advertising & even agreed to a "A Day without Shoes" (in the classroom) for any student that brought in shoes to donate.

That was Friday and the response was tremendous. Lots of neat stories from the moms how touched their kids were to give their shoes. One mom saw 2 boys at the bus stop with garbage bags full of shoes. I had gotten a lot of flip-flops on sale at the end of the year last year & kids that didn't have shoes to donate, could give $3 to sponsor a pair all the way to Ethiopia.

It was exciting to say the very least...455 kiddos in Ethiopia to get shoes,

way better than I could have stuffed in my suitcase!

We plan to do another collection this summer for VBS & well,

it sounds like our school wants to collect again next year!

I LOVE how God works!

So easy to do...as a school, church, neighborhood, friends, work... "Soles for Jesus" has lots of info on their website & they are super helpful when you e-mail. We figured out the cheapest mailing options (if you need that info) & there is a drop-off center in Chicago if you around there. Anybody with kids who out-grow shoes can participate!

And another great part of this was seeing our boys work so diligently to get the shoes ready to ship off yesterday! So happy to be HIS hands & feet! :)

Fun and thankfulness

Our boys grew up with "I love toy trains" & "All About John Deere" videos...we were able to check lots of them out from the library...and I can remember BJ as a toddler loving the videos & the boys still love them today. And here's the guy that started it all (as close to famous people as we get;)...as we visited his store with everything imaginable related to trains!

Here's the boys enjoying 6 trains going at once in a room-sized train track...


We had some wonderful days relaxing & having fun with my family in W. Michigan! So great to get to be together & so fun just to kick back on a little vacation!

The kids loving getting to play at the beach...counting the days till summer break & lots more days of getting to do this!

We were close to the Dunes, so they were very fun for the kids too...the girls are my sister's...she is the supplier of so many of Ellyana's cute clothes..very fun!

Dad did a neat thing on vacation as he had the family prior to vacation each come up with "100 things we are thankful for" lists (the kids did 10) then numbers were pulled out of the bowl & the family took turns sharing random numbers of thankfulness. I was thankful for the exercise, I had been wanting to get a formal list started since reading "1000 gifts"...so much to be thankful for, its impossible to stop. The Scripture is full of reminders to do this, may my heart be full of thank-FULL ness!!!And at the "Learning Fair" at school...Zach got to tour us around the amazing "Rainforest" his class had created...lots of hard work...he was really proud!

BJ's class has been studying local history & got to visit the village one-room school house. The kids were very excited!
BJ's sweet class in front of the village church they toured.

We are so thankful for the wonderful year the boys have had at school this year! We were thankful for the blessing of the little vacation...the calm before the storm...its going to be a crazy few weeks as school finishes up!

Our sweet neighbor let the kids pick out plants to put in her garden...she even let them do the planting!

We have much to be thankful for...the Lord is faithful & gracious!