Always a Project to Complete

Lance and his Dad have been busy stripping/sanding etc. our back deck. Yeah, they finished! Here are some before and after pics. I got my umbrella today (just in time, thanks mom!), and it arrived with a snag in the fabric. UGH! Put it up, took it down, back in the box, out to the porch, and wait another week. Luckily, this is Seattle, and the forcast for sun is bleak. The umbrella will not be missed that much.

Here is the deck before stain, but after they stripped it.

After.....if you were wondering, my chairs are currently being used in my kids "tent". :))

Just when you thought....

we had vanished. :) I cannot believe I haven't posted in a week. I have been keeping up reading all my blogee friends, but cannot get motivated to post. Maybe it is the rain and clouds! We went to Wenatchee last weekend for an AAI adoption weekend camp-out. We had a great time, thanks to the Littles ( and others) for planning the event! It was great to see the kids all together, and meet all of our list friends face-to-face.

I also have been busy (not sure if I want to admit this) reading a certain series of books. So far this summer I have read a ton of books.....mostly about Ethiopia, adoption, or Africa. The last 4 days, I have finished a certain series from Target. I will admit that the girl who rang up my purchase ( she was about 16) asked me if I was buying this book for myself. How embarrassing. But, I needed some easy reading and a break! If anyone else will be purchasing a book on August 3, you know what it is. ;) Here is a re-cap in pics.....


Leavenworth, Washington. Gotta love these grampas!

If you know Tsion, you know she HATES dogs. She was bitten in Addis by a rabid dog, and had a series of rabies shots in her stomach. I have no idea how old she was when that happened. But she LOVED this dog, and spent an hour throwing the ball to him. It was so sweet!

Tsion and a friend from Ethiopia. We all went to the embassy in Addis together Jan. 07

We stopped at a river to play on the way home.

Sami and Lance, making a dam.

Josh, busy collecting Fools Gold.

Sad News in Ghana

Please keep the AAI Eban house in your prayers, they were attacked and robbed the other night as the kids and "Aunties" were sleeping. Read more in Anita's blog, who will be travelling to Ghana as soon as she can.

Summer Life

I realized I need to stop slacking and actually write something. So here is my life in bullet points.

*First, Lance has become a FaceBook fan. For him it is a great way to connect with YL kids, so now I have a facebook as well. That has taken some time away from blogging! Do you want to be facebook friends!? :)

*This week we are meeting with a local agency who does child sponsorships, hoping to get some ideas. I am also trying to get ideas for good books to bring to Legedadi, and where to find books in Amharic. Our team said books in Ethiopia were pricey! We also need books that are good quality, and can hold up in an orphanage setting.

*Lance came home last week and had a great time at the Freshman Houseboat Camp, tonight we stocked up on props at Goodwill and Value Village (secret theme!) for Malibu in two weeks.

*We (which means Lance and his dad!) are stripping and refinishing our deck, which is a really fun job. ;)

*We started the Cabbage Soup Diet this week. I cheat, cuz there is no way I am giving up my coffee and diet coke!

*One day last week, I realized that after two trips to Starbucks (one was a date with Lance) I had consumed 8 shots of espresso, and suffered no effects....that is trouble.

*Sunday, we rode bikes over to Edmonds on the ferry. We thought it would be cheaper than driving our car on, but in the end it was almost the same. They will get you somehow. The kids had fun, but you can see they have to line up with the motorcycles to load, so it was stressful! I felt like I had a bike club that was riding thru town. They got to swim at their grandmas condo, and until Sami tried to cartwheel into the pool and missed, they had a great time. ;) Leg pictures to follow......


Klopp Bike Club, with Great Papa.....

Riding downhill to the ferry.....

Riding with the big boys....Josh "I was shaking the whole time!"

With Great-grama's at the pool. Lance's gma on the left, mine on the right.

*Saturday, we had a partial Wilson family get together. This is Zach with his 2nd cousin, he is so sweet with younger kids. He will be a great Dad! My grandpas sister was visiting from California.

*The Wilson Clan.....someday, genealogists will be scrutinizing this picture! If you are wondering, my Dad in the YL jacket has a "fake hair" hat on. ;)

*This weekend we get to spend some time camping and swimming at an Ethiopian gathering, we are so excited!

New Candidate

Story of Forgiveness

I had to share this story I saw on NBC tonight. It is an amazing story of forgiveness, with the victim's father turning into a father figure for his sons killer.

Hmm......

You are most like:

You are Green

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The feeling of spring follows you. Newness, surprise, beginnings and growth. Your fresh perspective gives others much to consider.

Ethiopia 2008!

We had our first meeting tonight for our next trip in December. We also got a recap on the week part of our team just spent there. We hope to hold the trip to 30 people, (includes 6 of us!) and to bring at least one Doctor this time. We will do the Young Life Camp, Project Mercy, and Legedadi. Emma (a senior, who has made the last two trips) made this video as a Sr. project, and did such a great job! Thanks Emma (now I do not have to make one!) ;))

One Life

On the Road Again

72 hours after being home again, I find myself at Costco with Lance and a YL crew, shopping for the Freshmen Houseboat trip. They had at least 6 huge flat carts, and I wrote a check for $3074 for 377 items for the trip. Checkers were begging us not to go in their line....you should have seen the stares from shoppers! So, Lance is gone, and I have been unpacking and trying to stay busy and sane. 2 trips to the beach, one baseball game, two soccer practices, only ONE trip to the gym, and one 30 minute break in the car, while the kids brushed their teeth and got into bed. ;) These pics are for me to remember the "high"lights!

" Mom, I need a towel for my hair!"

Hmmm...cute toe-ring, last seen at the beach......

Sami came running up to me "I found a huge frog......or, I mean a CRAP!" Or maybe a crab?!?

I kid you not, this lady stood there for 30 minutes holding this towel over her husband and baby. Next time.....bring an umbrella??? There is something interesting in this picture if you can find it.......

Floating on logs......

Her first, unexpected mouthful of saltwater!

Sad Day

On our way home from camp, I found out the baby I had called my own had died at Legedadi. It was a baby I had said a week earlier could be the one, even though we have no intentions on adopting an infant, and no adoptions on the horizon. I spent two days holding this baby, and I still do not know what her/his name is. He died from AIDS, and it shows our team (who just returned) how important it will be to find a way to test and be able to supply anti-virals to these kids at Legedadi. I wrote about my baby here and here are some more pictures from December.

I did share him a little. :)

Last Days at Camp....

Tsion with her friends, whom she cried over for days! :)

Tsion and her friend Sophia.

Our assignment team, with 23 kids!

"Billy Sundae", 5 scoops of ice cream (Sami hates ice-cream, and was to busy playing pool!)

Sami on the ropes course, he was a trooper!

Zach up front, me changing carabeaners, and Josh behind me. I will spare you the video of me screaming all the way down at the end. :)

BBC Article

"In a small shack made of iron sheets and pieces of clothing in the slums of Addis Ababa live the Alemu family - Abiy, Marasit Bishaw, and the couple's three-year-old son and 25-day-old baby daughter Yanit. And just a few metres from their one-room home is a mass of sewage and garbage, mixed with the carcasses of dead chickens and cow and goat skulls. The Alemus live near the gully where the Kabena river used to meander gracefully through the Ethiopian capital. But the river is now full of the city's waste, and a stench of sewage is the first thing that hits. During the rainy season, the filth and sewage from the skyscrapers up the hill flows freely onto the floor of the house. A sewer by the entrance jets waste water incessantly, sending a gush of greying liquid down into the river. The situation is typical of many in the slums of Ethiopia's capital, and highlights a desperate need for clean water.
In the town of Kechene, a little further downstream, is Amleworke Wordfa - an 80-year-old woman who shoulders the difficult task of raising her four grandchildren alone. A year ago she lost one of her granddaughters to illness resulting from contaminated water. "It was so hard for me to see her die," she says. "She was so beautiful." Now Wordfa attempts to boil all the water she gives to the younger two of her four surviving grandchildren, who are under five years of age. Nonetheless, fuel to do so is scarce. At times she just trusts their immunity, acquired through time, to keep them from getting sick."

Kechene is one of the towns we visited in Addis, where I traded water bottles with a boy in the school. Click here to read the rest of the BBC article.

Rewind to Pre-Classic

I am finally following up on race day. We ended up sitting in the right place! It was crazy all morning. Ashy actully knew one of the guys from Addis, who now has a restaurant in Portland. In the last segment, the guys are all around Meseret Defar, you can see her smiling towards the back. She brought out her jersey, and gave to to one of the guys. Sami and Minte say she asked them if they wanted it, but I don't think they understood what was going on! No World Records were set that day, but we had a great time!

Save the Date!

CNN is airing a special, July 23rd and 24th Black in America, 9pm ET. No matter how I would like to gloss over the blackness....reality is, these will be issues they will face. Click HERE for the CNN link.

Grand Finale!

Zach is on the right, Sami is the elephant. Tsion was helping her girlfriend wait on tables instead, and Josh would not be caught dead on stage! We are home, back to reality. :)

Happy 4th of July from WHC!

An Amazing Family!

"Tim and Tressa Brown make it look easy, as if raising seven children is no big deal. As if adopting six kids from an orphanage in Ethiopia is nothing special."

Click HERE to read the article, we were in Addis with Tim last January, and also readopted our kids together in court last year. Sami and Tsion were in Kidane Mihret with a couple of their kiddos. They are an inspiration!

Dance Take 2

It only took an HOUR, but here it is! I am leaving up the lame Youtube I TRIED to upload below, as a bad commercial for YouTube!

Ethiopia Drought Continues