Palm Springs Highlights

A Real Live Baby!

Tsion does a great job of caring for her "etopian" baby doll...so imagine her excitement when she could hold and feed a real baby! She loves her cousin Lauren.

Knott's Soak City

Here we are in 117 degree heat, so we decided to go to the water park! We managed to stay cool, and didn't get sunburned....and drank a lot of water. Sami and Tsion proved to be daredevils, and i was worried about "warming them up" for the big slides. Tsion luckily reached the 42 inch cut off for the larger slides!

Here is the daredevil, everytime Lance checked on us she had devised a new way to go down.......

Yes, Sami and Josh went on this, even after Josh stood at the top as we anxiously watched as the engineer checked the slide for safetly concerns........

A 24 Hour Trip

Things are definitely different travelling with 4 kids for 24 hours. It is double the FUN (ha!). We have 4 kids gathered around the portable DVD player that you can hardly hear......as we pass cars with players in the back of each seat. Dad wants to listen to his station-cuz he is driver, and everyone wants to listen to Adventures in Odyssey...and a bag of homemade silly putty "accidentally" erupts in the backseat. The FUN goes on and on!! But we made it to Palm Springs, with a quick cousin stop in Santa Clarita.

Deciding How to Mow........

We were debating on investing in a driving lawn mower for our yard.....then we discovered what 3 boys could accomplish!!

Here We Come Swim Team......

.....in our spare time, between 4 soccer teams. Ha! Sami passed level 4, with flying colors. His teacher says "Sam, You totally impress me everyday with your diligence and drive. You have natural talent." Tsion is onto level 3. I am such a proud mom!

Happy 6th Birthday!

Tsion celebrated her 6th b-day by attending an 8 o'clock soccer game....in the rain!!

We made up for it later, at the Spaghetti Factory. She got a vintage Madame Alexander doll which was a replica of the one that I had when I was little, she even cries. When Tsion went up to bed tonight, she handed her to me and said "You take her, she won't stop whining."

I did figure out the Princess thing......it is from too much Gigi!

Congrats Explosion!

4 days of soccer, 5 games, monsoon rains, camping and driving a 15 passenger van....Zach's soccer team came away with 2nd place in the gold division at Bigfoot 2007. Here are some pix!

YL Ethiopia

Check out their camp in June :)



"I have great news that God has done through the ministry. We had four camps and each camp had 150 kidstotal we took 600 kids and more than 325 kids acceptedChrist and now we follow up them through campaigners programmed and church program. That is a miracle for us and a lot of Muslim kids started to follow Jesus." Peter

Why Green?

Maybe because that is the color of my grass in the middle of August in Seattle, without too much help from our well. We camped and watched soccer games in the pouring rain this weekend.

A couple years ago we were in LA in August. I remember a conversation I had with someone asking why I would leave the Pacific NW in August. THIS is why!!

Sami

Sami has become an amazing swimmer. He is cruising thru the levels and if he passes level 4 this week, he qualifies to be on the swim team. His teacher said she has never seen anyone learn so quickly! 7 months ago he was scared to go near the pool, and we had to carry him in the water. It is odd carrying around a 9 year old in the pool! :)

Putt-Putt Golfing

I took the kids putt-putt golfing today. We have all been sick all week, so we needed a fun outing. This was the first time I had golfed with the kids since the Hilton in ET (not recommend for serious golfers)! We had a great time, till the 17th hole. I had told the kids to stay off the green while others were golfing, course Tsion was on the side, right next to the "pond". Next thing I know, she is in the pond, up to her stomach. It was VERY hard not to laugh, which most of us did after I got her out. She on the other hand, did not think it was funny. Do you know how gross that water is?

BTW, I won. I have to rub it in a bit, cuz mom doesn't win very much. ;)

This is golf in ET at the Hilton. If there is a golf course nearby, my family can find it. Notice that Tsion couldn't stay off the "green" there either. BTW golf is not very popular in Ethiopia. :)

"Thank You God"

The weather in Seattle all week has been overcast and drizzly.....yes, it is AUGUST. Today as we were walking into swimming lessons, Tsion looks at me with a shocked look on her face and says "It's not raining!" My response was Thank God! So she looked up into the sky and lifted her arms in the parking lot......"Thank you God!"

Our Garden

We have a large garden this year. Tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, "shincort" (onion) and pumpkins. Everyone got their own part, and planted what they picked out. When we were planting the garden, Sami told me a story about a plant that he and Helen (his cousin) tried to grow. They placed it outside their door in the sun, and it was stolen. Isn't that sad? I can imagine them tenderly planting it and putting it outside, only to wake up and it is gone. When he wrote his last letter, we made sure to tell them everything he was growing in "his" garden.

Are You Serious?

I have mentioned in previous posts that Sami and Tsion are VERY picky. Picky about everything. No honey buckets (a big one with sports!), certain foods, no spots on bananas, and under no condition if a piece of food falls on the table are they going to put it in their mouth. There was even a day when one of them dropped a UNpeeled orange on the ground and declared they would not eat it. I do know they were cared for and fed, and have many pictures of them growing up. But, I also visited their home.

Tonight my barbqed burgers were too done for Sami's liking, he said they were too DRY. It was time for the Best Dinner Comment ever:

"There are starving people in Africa eating out of garbage piles."

Sami looked at me like he was going to be sick.

"They do not."

I didn't know what to say next. If he didn't see it in ET (which I find hard to believe) we all just watched Invisible Children. Then he said:

"Fine, show me."

Then I thought, it would be easier to take the ferry and go to Seattle.

"Fine, I will."

Lights On, Lights Off

Sami and Tsion have slept with there lights on since they have come home. They cannot be dimmed but ON. I recently said, did you sleep with a light at "your home?" (That is what they call thier ET house) with Yawagnesh? (g-ma) He slowly answered no, she made them turn off the light, but Beletu (their mom) let them sleep with their light on. :)

Mission Complete....Almost

We received the coveted U.S. passports for Sami and Tsion. We weren't sure if they would come, our office was sure you had to have a social security number. To make it more confusing, to get a social that isn't "flagged with an 'A' status" you have to have a passport. The visa they received upon arrival into the U.S. automatically makes them citizens, but it is very difficult to get a document to prove it. First after arrival we got "green cards" (btw they are not green) on which they say "permanent resident." After the green cards we received 8 "welcome to the U.S." letters per child, in separate envelopes, your tax dollars at work. Next was the re-adoption, which gave us a U.S. birth cert. On the bottom it says "This is not evidence of citizenship." After we had sent our passport info in, with the "green" card, we found out we should have sent in for the Cert. of Citizenship, cuz pretty soon a U.S. passport will no longer be evidence of citizenship. Can you get a U.S. passport without being a U.S.citizen? Oh, and they doubled the $price$ for the Certificate to over $400 for adopted children. They must need to cover the cost of the "Welcome to America" letters!!

Since we have received the passports we have received three letters (for each child) saying "Thank You for applying for a U.S. passport. Your application is being processed................"

The Princess

This girl thing is new to me. Tsion is a great delegator/mom and likes to pretend she is the boss. I laugh as she points at the boys and tells them what to do, being the youngest. The other day we were in the GAP, she has been there twice since she has been home. We were trying a couple things on (thanks mom) and the gal came over and asked if she could add the item I was holding in the dressing room. Tsion looks at her, flings her item over her shoulder and announces "this too"!! There are no words to describe what I was thinking.

One of the very first things she discoved when she came home was the nail polish in my drawer. We have painted her toes a few times (not as many as she would like)! The other day I came home with a well deserved pedicure, and she dropped to the floor crying because she did not get to go. I told her we would do her toes when we went to California, so now she thinks that is what Disneyland is all about, she gets her toes painted. ;)

One of the sayings she stole from me that she tries to use to her advantage is "Cuz I am 5." She uses it all the time on the boys.

This was a conversation I had with her as I was shooing everyone outside last week:

me: "Tsion, outside."

Tsion: "I don't have to go outside."

me: "Why?"

Tsion (shugging her shoulders): "Cuz I am a princess."

We have our hands full, and our work cut out for us........

Happy 60th MOM!