My World Book

Time is flying by!

2010-05-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

I can not believe that we have been home now for almost 2 months. It seems like Zoe has always been a part of our lives and I can't believe how fast time is flying by.
Zoe is doing amazing!!! I apologize that I haven't written in such a long time. Our computer broke and then my hubby got a Mac. I've been wanting one for a while, but I had to relearn some stuff.
So, life is so much fun with 3 children. I love my kids so much! Here are just some photos of what we have been doing lately.
This first picture is a little hint of the birth announcements I am making for Zoe. Hopefully I will get them done soon. I'll post it as soon as the announcements are in the mail. But here is just a taste. We have had the craziest weather here in Utah. Even yesterday (May 24th) we had snow. Snow at the end of May!!! So Martin and Zoe love to ride bikes, unfortunately right now they have been stuck riding bikes most of the time in the garage.
Zoe and Martin are best friends. I think I hear her say Martin's name more than anyone else. Either her yelling at him to give something back or looking for him around the house. They sure love each other (well atleast most of the time they do)

My friend Trish came over the other day with her daughter Liv in this darling pink outfit. I kept asking her where she got it because I loved it. Well, suddenly she produced one for Zoe too. So they could be twins. Here is Zoe by herself.

Here is Zoe and Liv sharing a banana. Already best friends! How cute!!!

Zoe's favorite thing to do in the world is eat! She is being really silly in her highchair today, so I couldn't help to take a picture. Doesn't that smile just melt your heart?

My Little boy Martin is crazy on the soccer field. This was his first year and he loved it!! Although I think he bumped more heads than kicked the soccer ball. He did so good. Calvin also played soccer, but I don't have his pictures yet. I'll post one as soon as I get one. Calvin was a great goalie. I think in one game he blocked 3 balls that almost got in.

Every month each teacher at Calvin's elementary school pick out one student for the Principal's Pride award. We were so happy for Calvin because he was picked for the month of May. He is doing so well in school. He loves to read and is doing great in the French Immersian program. If anyone speaks french and sees Calvin- try it out on him! He will need lots of practice during the summer. Speaking of summer- how is it only 1 1/2 more weeks of school. Yikes all 3 kids at home all day!!!

We were so lucky because Josh's dad and stepmom came and stayed with us for almost 2 weeks, although I wish they could have stayed longer. We had a blast. Grampy's birthday was just a couple of days before Calvin's so we celebrated it together. And of course Martin had to help blow out the candles as well.

As many of you know- I love birthday parties!!! This year Calvin wanted a Mario birthday party. We had a blast. I was Princess Peach, Zoe was Princess Daisy, Josh was Mario and Martin was Louigi. All the boys were also Mario and the girls were Princesses. They came to my Kingdom and had to do all sorts of things for coins and to save the Princess. We had so much fun! I love these kids.

Isn't Princess Daisy beautiful!! She was the hit of the party. I can't take Zoe anywhere without someone running up to say hello. She is the most famous kid on the block. Everyone wants to play with her and talk to her. It is so cute.

Last week something exciting happened. Calvin finally lost his first tooth. Yay!!! However, the tooth behind is already almost in so you can't really see a missing spot in his teeth. He was so excited.

This is the boys the night before the tooth fairy came. They were really excited. I love how close they are. They each had seperate rooms until last year when they begged me to get bunkbeds and sleep in the same room. They are so funny at night when they are talking to each other. I usually just sit in my room and listen to their stories.

Oh and by the way- the Tooth Fairy did come.

Zoe and Martin hang out with me all day while Calvin is at school. Martin only has preschool a couple of times a week so they spend a lot of time together. They love to color. I can't believe how wonderful my boys are to their little sister. They take care of her, get her things, give her way too many hugs and kisses, and love her so much. We are so lucky to have Zoe in our family. Because this is exactly where she belongs.

I am so happy that we can all be together as a family. I feel so blessed that I can't even begin to express the love and joy that I have. I am so thankful for everyone who has been there for our family and for all the love and support we continue to receive. I love my little princess Zoe. She is doing really well. My favorite words she says right now is "I love you". It melts my heart everytime.

We are so lucky!!

I'll try to write more later. I'm just trying to catch up on everything I have missed since our computer broke.

And if anyone is every interested in adoption- please let me know. I would love to help you out with anything. Sometimes we need to go find our children as they don't always come to us. I am so glad that I finally found my daughter Zoe.

Doing Good!!

2010-04-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

Life could not be better!!!
First I want to let you know that I finally sent out an email to everyone who gave me their email address with information regarding our trip to Rwanda. If you did not receive it please post and let me know. I might have accidentally spelled your email wrong or maybe I didn't have your email address.
Here is our family in the middle of lots of snow on Easter. It had been so cold and snowy when we first arrived home, but we are loving it. Zoe doesn't want to stay out too long in the cold, but loves going outside. Finally the snow has melted hopefully it will begin to warm up soon.

I am posting a few pictures of our time in Kenya. Here we are at the Animal Orphanage. They actually let us go inside with the cheetahs and get a picture taken. This was awesome. I have been with Tigers in Thailand, and Lions in Zambia, but never with a Cheetah before. Aren't they beautiful!!

Here is Josh feeding an Ostrich.

Zoe was fascinated with this monkey that I was feeding on my shoulder. The rest of the time at the orphanage she kept trying to feed every monkey we saw.

This is our first morning as a family. All the boys had to be right next to Zoe. They are all showing her books and toys to play with. Aren't my kids so adorable? Ok- I know I am there mom. But I just can't help loving how sweet they are to each other!

We finally got dressed that first morning. Here we are upstairs giving more hugs. The boys just couldn't seem to get enough of Zoe.

Our first day home was really nice. The boys were out of school for Spring Break so we just hung out together all day as a family. Here the boys are showing Zoe how to open presents. Zoe gave each of the boys presents and they had some for her to welcome her home. Zoe didn't know what to think of her bedroom. I don't think she had ever seen so much pink before!

We went to an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday in my parents neighborhood. Zoe came even though it was snowy outside. And she got to meet the Easter Bunny. Although this was our second day home, she did amazing. She never cried. And loved walking around and seeing all the other kids.

So- the Easter Bunny did visit our house on Sunday!!! And lucky for us, he left some really cute Easter Church clothes for the kids!!

Here is Calvin looking for eggs

Here is Martin looking for eggs!

Zoe didn't quite get into the egg adventure, however she loved her little cell phone that the Easter Bunny brought her. This is now one of her favorite toys yet.

And by the way- she was a big hit at church. One of the men in our church said that she must be the most popular girl in the neighborhood. Everyone just loves her so much!! All the kids came up and were trying to get her attention it was so adorable.

We are so lucky to be in an area where she is surrounded by love!

Here she is with my friend Trish's little girl Bryn. Zoe already has a fan base and I think Bryn might be president of it.

We are doing amazing. Zoe is so happy and is doing really well. She hasn't spoken any English words yet, however she is doing some sign language. She loves to be around people, however she mainly wants me, Josh and the kids.

We are together as a family every day showing her love and earning her love in return. I am so blessed to be given this special girl.

I just want to send out one more special prayer. In one of my posts I spoke about her birthplace. We do not know who her birth mother is. The woman who found her and took her to the hospital is her honorary grandmother- not her real grandmother. She wanted to be called that and of course we wanted her to feel like part of our family as well. Although we do not know her birth mother, I hope she knows that her little girl is being taken care of and is loved very much.

It is incredibly difficult to give a child up. I am so sad that she had to leave her daughter behind, but I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to raise her and love her. I am so glad that she is my daughter. Although I have not spoken much about Zoe's birth mom in my blog, know that I think about her all the time. My heart, thoughts and prayers are with her everyday. I have written letters to her, but have decided to keep those private. But I just want it known that I love this woman who gave birth to our daughter. She can never know how much I truly love and appreciate her. So, although I have not said much, it is on my mind often. Thank you dear mother. Thank you for your sacrifice to bring our Zoe into the world, and into our family.

Homecoming!!!

2010-04-10T07:28:00.001-07:00

Yay!!! Whoo Hoo!! We finally made it home. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and thoughts!! We were so lucky to get out when we did as the Embassy was going to be closed for Easter and we could have been stuck there another week. Sorry I am now just posting. I have had a very difficult time doing anything as my kids won't let me out of their sight. Plus we are all so tired around here. However, it couldn't be more incredible at our household!!! We are all bonding and doing wonderful!! Here are some pictures of our homecoming in the middle of the night at the Salt Lake City airport. It was so beautiful! Zoe did amazing. The entire time we were in Africa she only wanted me (or sometimes Josh) to hold her. She would only smile and laugh after she had been around someone for a while. However, when we got to the airport and met everyone it was amazing. It was as if she knew they were family! She let people hold her, she gave kisses and hugs and smiled and laughed lots!
Here we are as a family for the first time!
Here is Calvin (my almost 7 year old) with Zoe. He is her protector and loves her. The second day she was home he told me "Mommy, she is just so cute, I can't stop staring at her". It brought tears to my eyes!

Martin (my 4 year old) can't get enough Zoe hugs and kisses. Luckily Zoe loves to give kisses. He plays with her and just loves to make her laugh. Zoe sure loves her brothers!

Zoe loves my mom. She wanted to be with her at the airport (even when I was standing right next to her). My mom comes over almost every day (as she only lives 15 minutes away) and Zoe loves it! I am so lucky to have such an amazing mom. She is the person who took care of my boys while we were away for 4 weeks. I love her so much!!!

Here is my dad. He was right there helping my mom do everything she could for our boys. I think it is because of him that I didn't have a nervous breakdown in Africa when they told me I would have to stay for 2 to 3 weeks longer. Thanks dad!!

This is the sight we came home to. I can't believe all the people that came even though it was the middle of the night and it was even during Spring Break!!! Zoe already has so many people who love her!

Here is Zoe with my little brother Spencer! Aren't they so cute!!

Here is Zoe with my other little (but bigger) brother Brandon. Both of my brothers are single- so if anyone knows any cute girls.... (ha ha!!!)

This is Josh's sister Rebecca. She lives near us and was amazing also while we were gone. She spent many nights at my house with my kids. My boys just love her and her husband John. I am so grateful to have them in our lives!!

This is Josh's sister Jessica. This was a huge surprise. She flew in from Boston area. I couldn't believe it when we were coming down the stairs and saw her standing there! She will be here for about 2 weeks in total. It has been so fun for everyone to be with her. The kids love playing with her!!

Here is one of my best friends Trish and her daughter Liv. Trish and her family were supposed to be in St. George for Spring Break. However, they put it off for a couple of days to see Zoe. Trish and her mom are actually the reason why we gave her the name Zoe. I was so excited to see Trish here! Isn't her daughter Liv so cute? We are already setting up play dates for the two girls!! By the way- excuse how messy I look in all of these pictures. We had been traveling for 35 hours. Oh- and can I just say that I love girls!!!! Daughters are so much fun to dress and play with!

Here is Trish and Mark with two of their daughters Liv and Whitney. I really must thank Mark because I know he probably wanted to be in St. George but he still came to the airport!!! I have such good friends!!!

Here are the Towner family. Anita, Eric and their daughter Angela. These guys are basically my second family. They work with us and travel with us and are just part of the family. I was so excited to see them there.

I can't tell you incredible everything has been since we got home. Zoe gets along with everyone. She is so relaxed in our home and our boys are doing really well. Although Martin is a little emotional since he isn't the baby anymore- everything feels so natural. I was also nervous with Zoe being 2 years old as we had initially requested a baby. But in reality it has made the transition even easier. She is old enough to play with our boys, old enough to eat dinner with us in her high chair and although I still hold her lots, I can also put a lot of attention on my boys as well. For those of you thinking of adopting only a baby , just know that adopting a 2 year old is awesome!!!

I know that God wanted her to be in our family. And I am sure she knows it as well. She is so happy. She smiles and laughs with the boys all day long. She plays games and mimics everything we do. She is very secure with herself and she knows this is where she is loved.

I will post more pictures hopefully tomorrow. And I am almost finished on all the information for those of you planning to adopt from Rwanda. I will be sending out emails really soon with lots of information and details on what I wish I would have known and done. ha ha!!

Anyone else who wants the information please leave a comment with your email address. I will not be publishing these email addresses. It's not a lot of information, but if I would have double checked and done some things differently it would have saved us a lot of time in Africa.

Also, I know that many of you have left questions. I had a hard time getting to those in Kenya as it was $10 an hour to use the internet. However, now that I am home and finished the itinerary for Rwanda Adoptions, I will soon be answering all of your questions. And hopefully since we got the Kenya Embassy contacting and talking to the Rwanda Embassy that will solve a bunch of problems with delays.

Thanks again for all of your prayers. We are so grateful to be home with our daughter.

Just one last note. I get the question all the time on how I can love her as much as my kids I gave birth to. Well, I would like to finally answer that question first hand. Adopting her feels like I gave birth to her. I love her, want to take care of her, want to protect her and want to hug and kiss her just as much as my boys. She may not have been born from my tummy, but she was born from my heart. She is my daughter. I knew it from the first moment I saw her. I am filled with the same love for her as I have for my boys. God knew that she was mine- it just took a little while for me to find her that's all.

Finally Leaving Kenya

2010-03-30T06:02:00.001-07:00

I am so incredibly happy! We got Zoe's visa today. This means that we finally get to leave Kenya. I am so happy. In all it took about 5 business days to get our visa. I can't tell you how thrilled I am. I totally started crying when the Embassy called me to let me know that we can finally go home.

I am almost done putting together an itinerary for anyone else planning on adopting from Rwanda. It has a lot of tips that we found out a long the way. We leave tomorrow night and get home on Thursday around midnight. I will try to get the itinerary out by this weekend.

Zoe is doing really well. I just had to share one comment I got on my blog that I am not posting because it has an email address on it. There was an American family who lived in Rwanda from October 2008 to December 2009. They adopted a child from Rwanda a couple of years ago. Also, while they lived there she went to the orphanage once a week to help out. She recognized our daughter. She then proceeded to tell me that she had never seen Zoe smile while she was in the orphanage. I got very emotional as I was reading her comments as during the first week and a half Zoe did not smile once or say one word. Now she laughs and smiles all the time! It made me so happy that we were able to adopt her. She never felt safe or comfortable for her true self to come out. Now that she has a loving mother and father, all she wants to do is play, smile and laugh.
I am so lucky that we get to have this amazing daughter in our lives.

If anyone is thinking about adopting, please consider it. Although we have had our trials over here in Kenya, it is totally worth everything to be with Zoe. She is bonding so well it is amazing. She knows that I am mommy and that Josh is daddy. She comes to me already when I call her name and is always ready for a hug and a kiss for me. I really am so lucky!!!! I think that we are all lucky.

I can't wait to see my boys. They really have been amazing troopers. I am so lucky to have the family I have!!! I want to say thank you to all my friends and family members who helped me watch out for our boys.

I want to say thank you for all the prayers that have been sent my way. I am thankful for God who had me learn patience, and also helped me get home sooner than we thought at first.

I will try to post some more pictures tomorrow if we can download them before we leave. Right now I have a short time left online and I plan on using it to skype my kids!!!

Hopefully we will have a safe flight home and no episodes on the airplane by either me, Josh or Zoe. ha ha!!!

Not much to update

2010-03-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

So, my last post I think I was a little sad and frustrated about being stuck here in Kenya. I first want to say that I have spent a lot of time fighting for anyone else who will be coming here. And I have made some progress. I also want to say that I am so grateful for all of the prayers that have been coming our way. We are doing good here in Kenya and are still hopeful that we will be able to go home this week. The only problem is that the Embassy is closed on Wednesday, Friday and Monday. I am praying hard that we get our information sometime by Thursday so we don't have to stay into next week.

The good news is that Zoe is bonding so well with us. It is crazy to think that her first week and a 1/2 she didn't speak one word. Now she talks non-stop. Of course most of it is either Kinyarwanda or babbling, but it is so fun. She likes us to copy her. She also smiles and laughs all day. She can't get enough of Josh teasing her and throwing her around.

It is times like these that I know everything will be ok. I don't want to scare anyone away from adopting in Rwanda. Although we have spent some extra time here in Kenya, it is so worth it to see the smiles and hear the laughter from Zoe. She is totally worth it!!!

I spoke to a consular today at the Nairobi embassy. She said that the US Embassy in Nairobi has spoken to the US Embassy in Rwanda and has told them that the information needs to be sent right away after the I-600 is filed. This was part of my problem. We filed the I-600 on Friday, but Rwanda didn't send it until Wednesday.

I am also putting together an entire itinerary of what I wish we would have done. I am just putting it on as a word document and will send it out to anyone who is interested. I have a bunch of emails from my last post. If anyone else is interested please let me know. I won't publish your post with your email address included.

I want to do everything in my power to help the next families to come to Rwanda. I think that a lot of time will be saved if everything is done in a certain order.

I am also trying to fight the Adam Walsh Clearance if possible. I have been doing a ton of research and what I am finding is that it is not required, but Nairobi believes it is. It is only required if you file an I-130 form. I have already spoken and sent emails to National Visa Center(NVC), USCIS, National Benefits Center (NBC) and Department of Homeland Security. I have also contacted Senators and Congressmen (in Utah). I would recommend anyone else adopting to do the same. I think that if we get our voice heard that maybe we don't have to do this check.

The other thing I am finding out is that most places I have contacted don't understand why the US Embassy is requiring it. So, you might want to send an email to the US Embassy in Nairobi as well stating that it is difficult for those adopting to be gone so long. It is also expensive.

However, that said, if the Nairobi US Embassy continues to do the Adam Walsh check, I can send you some information on how to save time and get it started while you are in Rwanda.
If you would like some information please post your email address (no worries I won't post it) and I'll get back to you. If you have already posted it, you are fine, I will send you the information. I am still waiting on a couple of more things that I am researching before I finish the itinerary with lots of information that we have discovered along the way.

Well, I gotta go. I only had a little time online and I just wanted to quickly post and tell everyone that is adopting or planning to adopt- don't give up!!!
I promise the first time you see your child smile, laugh (and I can't wait for her to call me mommy!) it will be worth it!!

One more thing- Thanks for all the support and again thanks for the prayers! It is amazing how much love we feel from everyone! Please don't forget our family as we still aren't home yet!!!

Stuck in Kenya

2010-03-26T03:31:00.000-07:00

Well, we spent hours emailing and phoning everyone we knew. Claire from Children of All Nations spent about 9 hours alone for us advocating for us to come home and such a bummer, because they still will not give us our visa. They tell us here we could be here as long as 2 weeks before we can leave Kenya.

I'm so tired right now as I didn't sleep much last night and I have a headache from today. I am not going to post much today. I found out some information that I'll pass along later to help the next people who are coming.

The good news is that Zoe is bonding really well and is so happy and does really well. However I can tell that even she is getting tired of hotel rooms and waiting in buildings for paperwork to be done. But she is very lovable. She gives me kisses and hugs all day long. I am so lucky to be her momma!!

Will you please keep my two boys at home in your prayers? They are having a difficult time without us being around and I just feel awful being here without them. I know they are being taking care of by my parents, but I know that they miss their mommy and daddy.

If anyone who is adopting from Rwanda is interested in finding out more information about what we are dealing with here, please post your email. I can then send you an email when I get home giving you some further details I wish I knew before we got here.

Kenya- will we ever leave?

2010-03-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

About 4 years ago we came here to Kenya with our son who at the time turned 2 while we were here. We loved it!!! This time, unfortunately I can't say the same thing.

Basically the US Embassy in Kenya is just about impossible to work with. I feel so bad for anyone who has to come here to get their visa done. For those of you adopting and coming here you will soon find that they want you to stay a couple of weeks before you can go home. Here is what we have been doing here.

We flew in on Sunday. Monday we went to the US Embassy to make sure that everything was ok. They even took our folder from Rwanda. After that we went to the doctors to get Zoe's tb shot to make sure she is ok. Tuesday we didn't have to do anything so we had a little fun and went to the Daphne Sheldrik baby elephant orphanage. This was a really fun visit. If anyone is planning on visiting just a quick note- it is only open from 11:00 to 12:00. They bring out the baby elephants and let them play around. They have balls and they kick them around. Below are some pictures.
Here is Zoe and I enjoying watching the elephants.

Aren't the elephants so cute. It was fun to kick the ball back to them to play.

Zoe wants to walk everywhere on her own. I of course let her, because she spent a lot of time in her crib and hasn't seen much of the world. She enjoys playing around, however if anyone comes up to her, she is quick to run to her momma.

So to finish our days in Africa. On Wednesday we went back to the clinic to get Zoe's results. She was negative on tb and then they did a physical and gave her the rest of her immunizations.

Thursday is when everything hit the fan. So we went to the embassy early in the morning. We got there around 7:00am when they open. There was actually already a huge line. We were really lucky because we had a baby with us, they sent us the front of every line. We then gave them all of our information and waited about 2 hours for them to call us to a window. The man behind the window told me that we had to wait at least a week before getting our visa as we had to wait for the Adam Walsh check. I told him that we did the check right before we left and handed it to him. He checked on some things and came back to tell us that wasn't right. He said that he would start the process today. I then asked him why they didn't start it on Monday when I dropped off the papers. He said he didn't know why, but we didn't get the paperwork from Rwanda until Wednesday. Now when I left the US Embassy in Rwanda I told them they had to get the papers to Nairobi right away, but they didn't. Any of you adopting- tell the Rwanda Embassy they must get it there the next day!!

So, now here we are in the hotel. I have spent hours on email and phone calls to every department trying to find someone to help us. Here is the problem. When I call the non-hague adoption services they say that the Adam Walsh is not required. When I call the hague adoption services they say they can't help me because Rwanda isn't a hague adoption country. It is a huge mess. Kenya is a hague country and Rwanda isn't. By the way anyone reading this that is not adopting, will not understand what I am talking about- just know that it all means one big mess. ha ha!!

Our flight is tomorrow night. I am going to send Josh home as I think that our boys at home have been without us long enough. So that leaves me by myself to bring Zoe home. I hope it will be ok, as on our last flight she didn't like the airplane (although she fell asleep luckily right before we took off and woke up right when we landed). And she doesn't like to sit very long. So we'll see what happens.

Please keep our family in your prayers. We have many people sending emails to Nairobi to see if we can get our visa and hopefully something will work and their hearts will be softened. I really want to go home. We have already been here for 18 days. That is a long time to be away from your children and I would hate to stay another 7 more days.

My advice to anyone adopting is first go to the US Embassy in Nairobi and state that they need to start the Adam Walsh clearance immediately. That way they can begin it while you are getting medical work done. I don't know why they didn't start ours as we dropped off our paperwork. Next make sure that Rwanda sends your paperwork to Nairobi right away. And if at all possible avoid Nairobi. They think they understand the laws, but they don't. They are very messed up right now.

I guess it is all in the Lord's hands now. If he feels that I need to learn patience and to persevere I will be here. I'll write tomorrow and let you know what the results are. However, I'll tell you right now that the man working at the Embassy said that I have a zero chance of getting out of here tomorrow.

I guess I'll just keep praying!!

Departing for Kenya

2010-03-21T00:39:00.001-07:00

I can't believe this is our last day in Rwanda. I am so sad!!! Yesterday was a wonderful. Last night we went to dinner at Jacqui and James house. It was declicous!!! It was the last night that we were all together. I am going to miss everyone so much. The people are wonderful. I am so grateful for the work that Jacqui did and especially for Lyn. She was there with me every day helping us get everything done. Thank you!

Below is a picture of Zoe. We spent a lot of time in the car. It was so cute because Josh got out of the car to grab something in the hotel and right after he got out, she jumped off my lap and ran to the window to see where he was going. She waited there until he came back. It is nice that she is bonding so well with both of us.
Yesterday we went and visited some of the churches that people were killed during the genocide. It was a very humbling experience. Zoe and I are walking around one of the churches. Purple is the color of morning, hence the purple flowers behind me. It was difficult to visit these places, however I am glad that we went. It is important that no one forgets what happened in 1994 in Rwanda. This can never happen again. It can never happen again anywhere!

Here I am with someone who I would call a walking miracle. He was hiding in the church with his family during the 1994 genocide. There were over 6,000 people inside the church and over 4,000 on the church grounds. All of them were killed except for 7 people. He was 8 years old at the time. His story was very moving. It brought me to tears. Here is an amazing man. I know that I will never forget meeting him and that short time I spent with him. We are inside one of the churches. Behind us are the clothing items from the victims. They are displayed all around the church.

I won't have much internet access in Kenya so I don't know that I'll be posting many more pictures of our adventure, but I'll try. Zoe is doing good and I just love her so much.

Wish us luck and keep us in your prayers in Kenya that everything goes well with getting her a visa. We are in Kenya until Friday. We fly out around midnight on Friday and get in on Saturday night around 11:30pm (if everything goes well). Counting down the days to see my boys!!!

I also had to mention that last year in May my sister passed away. Today is her birthday and she would have been 31. Although I am so sad that she is not here to celebrate with us, I know that God works in mysterious ways. I know she is needed elsewhere and I will see her again someday. I also know that I am so grateful that I have Zoe Nicole here with me now.

Happy Birthday Nicole!!! I love you!!

Paperwork finished in Rwanda!!!

2010-03-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Yay!!! We finished all of our paperwork. We are done with everything in Rwanda. We have a darling little passport of my beautiful princess and we are finally ready to go to Kenya to work on our visa. I can't believe that we have been here for 11 days and left 13 days ago. We are going to tour the countryside tomorrow and go see one of the lakes and then Sunday we fly to Kenya.
Today we went to a really cool Art Studio called Ivuka. It means rebirth. If you are ever in Rwada I would recommend coming here. It was started by a man named Collin. He started a program for local artists to come and paint and sell their paintings. They are amazing. He also does a program for little kids, especially orphans or poor children to do art for therapy. His program is really amazing.

So, here is the problem. I take about 100 photos of Zoe every day. And then I come to the computer and I'm supposed to pick out only one to show on my blog. Well, today I couldn't decide. So, here are a bunch of pictures of my special princess. I just can't get over how beautiful she is. She is laughing and smiling all the time. She loves to play games with daddy. She loves him to chase her while she is running as fast as her little legs can carry her to her mommy, laughing all the way.

The man in the orange shirt is Collin. He is in charge of the art institute. I got some beautiful paintings from here. One is for Zoe's room and I'm so excited about it. I forgot to take a picture of it before they wrapped it up. I'll post it later.

Zoe and Daddy. Hanging out in front of the art institute.

my princess

my princess wondering why I won't stop taking pictures of her.

On our city tour we saw the hotel from Hotel Rwanda. This is the actual hotel. The movie for some reason was filmed in South Africa, so the hotel they used wasn't the real one. This is the real hotel.

We only have tomorrow to see Rwanda and then we leave on Sunday. I can't believe we are all done with our paperwork, Zoe has a passport and we will be leaving. It is such a sad and happy feeling that I have about departing. We travel out of country all the time and never has it been so sad for me to leave. I am very excited to get Zoe home and of course to see my boys, but I feel that Rwanda has become a part of me. I love this country so much. I love that my daughter is from here. The people and the country are so beautiful and I will miss it very much.

If you ever have an opportunity to visit Africa, I would recommend coming to Rwanda. It is an amazing place.

Zoe Smiling

2010-03-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

It took a couple of days for Zoe to hang around us before she smiled. And when she did smile it was because I was tickling her. However, the last two days she has been smiling at me without any tickles. Today she even smiled for the camera. Needless to say I was smiling big behind the camera. Doesn't she have the most beautiful smile? I love this little girl!!! How did I get so lucky to be her mommy?
Zoe loves bananas. She wants to eat one with every meal. We have a big stack of them and she is always wanting one. It is one of the few foods that she will eat. She hasn't learned to use her teeth yet, so she won't eat anything hard. Not even crackers or cookies. But she loves bananas.

Zoe is all ready for the day. This morning she grabbed her shoes wanted me to put them on and then went to the door ready to go out for the day. By the way, this was at about 6:30am this morning. Needless to say she had to wait for us to get ready!

Here is my little rock star. I took this a couple of days and I had to post it. She loves these sunglasses.

We are all doing well. Just waiting for her passport to be done. Josh and I got Zoe's cold, so we are all a little under the weather but we are all together and that's all that matters. We are doing a city tour today which I look forward to. Although I have seen a lot of the city driving from each spot to the next, I wanted to learn a little more about Kigali.

The last few days in Rwanda

2010-03-16T07:16:00.000-07:00

Here we are at the African Bite restaurant again. A monkey came and visited us. Zoe was very impressed. She couldn't stop looking at it. This is our favorite place to eat. We come here almost every day for lunch. It is so delicious. This is on Saturday. We had a relaxing morning, met up for lunch and then had a wonderful day.

On Saturday we went to the Genocide Memorial. It was a very moving place to visit. If you do not know much about the genocide I recommend that you read the books "As we Forgive" as well as "Land of a thousand hills". Both of these should be read by anyone adopting from Africa as it gives a lot of history about the genocide as well as information about Rwanda. They are a strong people. They have gone through a lot and they are working together creating a better country.

Here is our awesome guide Lynn with Zoe and myself sitting outside of the memorial. I look awful as I had just finished going through the museum. It was very sad but especially when we went through the childrens museum portion and I was holding little Zoe in my arms, it was very moving and I couldn't help myself.

Here is Zoe and I walking around outside at the Memorial. It was a very emotional experience. The grounds are really pretty. There are big slabs of concrete. Under these are buried around 250.000 bodies.

On Sunday we drove to her birthplace about an hour outside of town. Here is the woman who took Zoe to the hospital at her birthplace. I am not going to share her story of her birth as I feel that this is something that I will only share with her when she is older. However this woman will always be very special to me. She was so excited. We went to her home and had fanta drinks with her. It was amazing we even found her. She said she is Zoe's grandmother. She kept clapping her hands and jumping up and down because she was so excited for her.

Here is the nurse who took care of her when she was at the hopsital. She was so happy to see her. She told us she was her God Mother. It was sad because Zoe of course would not want to go to her. I believe she thinks someone will take her away from me. But she held her anyway, crying. It was an incredible meeting. She took us all around the entire hospital and introduced Zoe to everyone. Many knew who she was. Zoe does not want to let go of me. She is always holding me tight.

This is her room she stayed in at the hospital. I was so excited because they said we could take a picture of the room. She lived here for 3 months before she went to the orphanage. The workers were all so nice. Everyone was so excited to see her. They couldn't believe that she was going to America.

The entire land is hills. It is crazy. All you see are hundreds of hills everywhere you look. Everything is terraced and placed up on the hills.

These are some typical houses here. Each house usually has 3 bedrooms. One bedroom for a sitting room, one room for the parents and one room for the kids. On average they have about 6 kids per family and all 6 kids share one room. Just a side note- for any of you thinking about adoption and not wanting kids to share rooms- it's ok. Here they share rooms and everyone is fine. Ok- that's enough of my adoption plug for now. They have a seperate type of little house in the back that they use for a kitchen.

Here are some houses built up on the hills. It is hard to describe how beautiful it is and I know this picture does not do it justice. It is so beautiful here! Very green!

Zoe is obsessed with her mouth. We finally got her a binkie. She makes me hold her sippie cup in her mouth all day long (even when she is not drinking it) I think she sucks her thumb and puts things to her mouth for comfort. We thought we would try this.

Today was so long. Josh told me that he likened Rwanda to sitting at the DMV all day long about 8 hours day with a two year old waiting for something to be done. Last Friday they told us to come at 10:00am. We went there at 10:00am and then they said to come at 1:00. We went at 1:00. We then waited and waited. Finally at 4:50 we had our travel documents. Finally!!!! The day before was so amazing and yet today was not very good. I'll be glad when all of the paperwork is done.

Today we went to Immigration. We got her passport started. For those of you coming just so you know you actually can start the passport process before getting your travel letter. You only need the travel letter to pick it up. They are actually very efficient here. We filled out some papers, gave them copies of all our documents and passport pictures of Zoe (which are really cute) and they will process her passport. It will be a Rwandan passport and it will still be under her name Lucie Uwimana. She also got her yellow fever shot today as she needs this for Kenya. That was really sad!!!

Now we get to relax and spend time seeing the sights in Rwanda. We are really excited. We are doing a city tour and driving around and outside of Rwanda. Hopefully we will have her passport by friday morning and then we can visit the US Embassy on friday. This means we can fly to Kenya on Sunday.

Rwanda setting up National Adoption Center

2010-03-14T10:57:00.001-07:00

For those of you that are either in the process of adopting or wanting to adopt from Rwanda I had some exciting news to share with you. A couple of days ago on Thursday there was an article in the New Times newspaper here in Rwanda. It stated that they were opening a National Adoption Center here in Rwanda. I have been trying to download the article to share it with you, but I am having a hard time. If you google New Times newspaper in Rwanda you will find their site. You will first need to register to be able to look at past issues. After you register, go to the front page and do a search for orphanages. The title is about setting up the National Adoption Center.
While I have been here I have seen how swamped everyone is here. The Ministry is really behind and since right now there is only one orphanage adopting, the nuns are really busy. I have spoken to the nuns and a little at the Ministry's office. I know how busy they are and how behind they have been getting. I'll post more when we get home.
Please don't let me discourage any of waiting or wanting to adopt, I hope that the National Adoption Center will change many things. I see this as a very good thing. The Ministry is already in charge of so much and with the adoption center on its own, things should speed up. Please pass this along to anyone you know who might be interested in Rwanda.

I mainly wanted this post for those people who are waiting. While we waited for Zoe I craved any information I could find. I will also write more when we get to Kenya. I will keep trying to find out any further information or details I can find.
Zoe is doing really well. I will post about our last couple of days tomorrow. For those of you waiting don't give up. It has been crazy with employment changes, a large increase in adoptions and just even working with the slow time here in Africa. They are trying to make things work better. I didn't know when we would get here and we did. I still can't believe that we are here and she is sleeping right in our bed right now. It's awesome. You will get here. God has a plan for each child. Sometimes you just need to wait for yourself or your child to be ready.

Have a fabulous day!

Zoe stays with us after a long day in Africa!

2010-03-13T00:31:00.000-08:00

So, last night I was so tired after the day that I couldn't write anything. So, I decided to write everything in today. I'm going to show pictures first and then I'll tell you about the long day we had yesterday at the end. Zoe is with us in our hotel and I love it!!! Yesterday I even got her to smile. That was definetly a highlight!! I finally got to dress Zoe today! Here she is in her first little girl outfit from her mama! Doesn't she look beautiful?

Zoe was so good this morning. We spent the morning hanging out in the hotel and just playing. She loves the stacking cups.

Here are some pictures of yesterday. We got her haircut last night. It was really tangled up and very dirty. We thought since she was now with us it would be best to cut her hair and give her a really good bath. They undid her hair and the top part of her hair was about 3 inches of fro. I loved it, however the sides weren't growing so we had to cut the entire thing to very short.

Here she is in her outfit that we brought her home in from the orphanage. Her hair is untangled it is now ready to be cut.

Zoe is almost done with her hair cut. She got so sad. She didn't say anything but at the end I knew it hurt. I saw one little tear come down from her eye. It made my heart break. Her hair was so tangled up and dirty, so it so much better now.

Here is sweet little girl. It was our first night together! She slept the entire night. She is so quiet. She never says a word. However in the middle of the night she did talk in her sleep.

Here is Zoe sucking her thumb last night. Isn't she so cute. I had to get up and take a picture.

Here is where the long day begins. Yesterday we got up early to go to the court house to pick up our approval. We couldn't pick it up yesterday after Court as they had made some mistakes so we had to get it today. We drove to the court house. When we got to the court house we made it just before the judge left. Our lawyer spent about 30 minutes to an hour trying to get him to sign the paper before he left. He signed it. But we couldn't pick it up. We had to drive to another building to pay about $3 for the paperwork. We drove to that building where there was a long line. We somehow got to the front and told them we needed to pay and they told us first we needed to go to the bank and bring the receipt back to that building to get another receipt to take to the court house. So we left the building and went to the bank. Lynn told us that the worst thing to do in Africa is go to the bank. We waited in line over an hour just to pay $3. Then we drove back to the other building. By the time we got there, the line was even bigger. We dropped Lynn off to wait in line for us as we went to go get Zoe from the orphanage. We then met Lynn at the court house. We were gone about an hour before we got to the court house and we still didn't have our paperwork. Finally after waiting a while it was done. Needless to say we didn't get to the Ministy's before lunch.
We decided to have lunch at the Africa Bite. This is such a cute place to eat. I think it is my favorite so far. And the food is really good!!!

After lunch we went to the Ministry's office. We asked them for our travel letter. We need this letter in order to have Zoe spend the night with us and for her to get a passport and be able to leave Rwanda. When we got there she said that the Minister wasn't there. We told her that we would wait. After about 2 hours it was getting close to closing time so I told her we needed this letter so that Zoe could spend the night with us. She said that the minister isn't here to sign that paper. However she said she would see what she could do. She called the nuns at the orphanage and asked them if I brought a letter back signed by the minister stating that we could bring Zoe home this weekend is that ok? They said yes. So she said that the Minister would sign a document for us to have her come home this weekend. In my mind I thought "Didn't you say she wasn't here?" But I wanted Zoe with us this weekend so I didn't do anything. After waiting for another 30 minutes, we actually saw the minister poke her head out of her door. She spoke to her secratary and then went back into her office. We waited an additional 2 hours for her to sign a letter stating that we could take her back with us.
By the way did I mention that every place we waited at didn't have any air conditioning. And it is really warm. We were all drenched in sweat from sitting and waiting all day at different places. Now we have to wait until Monday to get our travel letter.
Finally we took a very tired Zoe back to the orphanage. We gave the letter to the nun as well as went over all of our paperwork. We then received Zoes files. Then we went to the grocery store to get some dinner and of course lots of water after the heat from today!! After that, we cut her hair and gave her a bath and brushed her teeth.
But finally the best part of the day. Zoe got to sleep in between us the entire night. It was splendid. She slept the entire night.
I however, didn't sleep much at night because I couldn't stop staring at her all night long!
Well, I am so tired again today, so I'll tell you more about that tomorrow!!

Pictures of Zoe- (Finally!)

2010-03-11T06:06:00.000-08:00

Here is my beautiful girl! Finally you get to see the new love of my life Zoe!
We got our approval today from court. We are so excited!!

Here is our first picture we ever received of Zoe. This was our referral picture.

Here are pictures I got of Zoe about 1 week before we met her.

Here is Zoe with Jacqui. She is our Rep here in Rwanda. She bought Zoe this cute little pink dress to wear.

Here are some pictures of Zoe yesterday. This is our first meeting. I blogged yesterday how the meeting went, so today here are the pictures.

Here is Josh in our hotel room playing with Zoe. We were only able to play with her for about an hour. She loved the stacking cups! She is so quiet. I wonder what will happen when she gets home to our loud family.

She didn't cry at all today. I think that we took her during nap time though as she was very tired. But she wouldn't let anyone take her away from me. She would hold on so tight.
I am so lucky! I am so excited to show you my beautiful daughter! I can't wait to bring her home to meet her brothers and the rest of her family!

Meeting Zoe and Court Date

2010-03-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

Well, it finally happened. I still feel not quite so real right now. Today I got to hold my beautiful daughter Zoe. She is so cute!!!
So, let me give you a few details first regarding our situation. We were to have a court date on Monday and we arrived Tuesday night to find out that they decided to have a holiday on Monday so we didn't have a court date. We found out that they wanted to schedule our court date for next monday. So today we met with Zoe for a couple of hours and then went to the court house to try to get stuff done. Lucky us, our lawyer convinced the judge to let us go to court today!!! And tomorrow we get the ruling!!! We are so lucky that everything worked out. So basically that means that I can't show pictures yet of Zoe until our ruling tomorrow, but then I can show you pictures. Here are just a couple of pictures until then. Here is Josh with our guide Lynn and our lawyer.

Here is the entrance to the orphanage. It is well known for the blue color throughout the entire orphanage.

Now on to meeting Zoe.
So we drove to the orphanage and waited for the nuns to bring her out. Finally she came out and we saw her walk up with the nun. It was amazing to see her in real life. I went down and picked her up and of course she started crying. She kept pushing away from me and trying to get away, but I wouldn't let her. I kept holding on and rubbing her back, while rocking her back and forth whispering words in her ear. Finally she just fell asleep in my arms. Josh and I held for about an hour and 1/2 before she woke up. She woke up in my arms and at first was a little nervous and then suddenly she was clinging to me. She was holding me tight. When I leaned in a little towards her, she leaned her entire body against mine. She was so quite, didn't say one word, however she just keep holding on to me. It was just as beautiful when I gave birth to my first two boys and I got to hold them for the first time.

We finally had to go to court and it was so sad to say good-bye, but the good news is that she didn't wat to go back to the nuns. She was clinging on to me and started crying again. She wanted me. I was so sad and happy at the same time.

I told her that I would be back tomorrow. We go again tomorrow morning to be with her and then we will go back to court to get our ruling. We are also going to try and get our travel documents together tomorrow so we can have Zoe come home and sleep the night with us. I'll keep you posted on everything.

For those of you waiting patiently for your little ones- just keep holding on. It will happen. And it is the best thing in the world.

Thanks for your prayers! Things are going so well. We hope they continue. Please continue praying that Zoe will continue to bond with us and that we will be able to get all of our paperwork together soon.

We love you all!!!!! And hopefully tomorrow we can show you our little girl!!!

Leaving the hotel

2010-03-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

We are sitting in the lobby waiting for our ride to the orphanage. We are to meet the nuns at the orphanage at 10:00. That is 39 minutes.
Counting down. So excited!
Happy birthday Zoe!!!

We made it!

2010-03-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

We flew into Rwanda tonight. The last hour I was so anxious to just be here. When I got off the plane and was walking outside in the moist damp air to the airport I began to feel very emotional. I almost started crying I was so happy to finally be in Rwanda. It has been a long time waiting (between china and Rwanda) for my daughter to come home. And she is right near me. Breathing the same air I am breathing. Looking up at the same night sky. Tomorrow morning my rep from Rwanda will pick me up at 9:00. Her name is Jacqui. I look forward to meet her. After she picks us up we will head to the Home of Hope orphanage. In around 12 hours I will meet my dear sweet beautiful girl.

I am so tired and I really need to get sleep as tomorrow will be a busy and amazing day. Next time I write Zoe Nicole will be part of our family.

Thank you for everyones prayers to get us this far! Keep praying that everything will run smoothly here for us as well as at home with my boys who I already miss.
Good night!

Quick update

2010-03-09T00:42:00.000-08:00

So we flew to Belgium and spent the night last night. It was freezing cold here. We relaxed and spent the evening reading and resting as this will be our last night to really relax. Now we are at the airport waiting to board our plane to Rwanda. In 24 hours we should be with Zoe.

We get in late tonight so we won't see her until tomorrow morning.
Is this real? I keep pinching myself as I have had this same dream so many times of going to get Zoe.

I'll post more soon. We are almost there!! We are coming Zoe!!!

Can not believe it is almost here!

2010-03-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

How is it possible? I still keep pinching myself to make sure that this is real. Can we really be leaving on Sunday? Will we really see Zoe on Wednesday? I am so happy that I will soon be united with my daughter. I have Zoe's items all packed. The hardest thing was picking out which cute outfits to pack. I just need to say I am so excited for all the girlie clothes I have. My friend Jen even made me the most amazing little bracelets for her tiny wrist.
I am just finishing my packing (it wasn't near as fun as packing for Zoe). I have lots of lists and I am slowly checking one item off at a time.

I am also trying to spend as much time as possible doing really fun stuff with my boys! Luckily they travel a lot (Calvin has already been to Africa) they know that we will be gone and home soon. They can't wait to meet Zoe. Tomorrow we are taking the boys to see the new Alice in Wonderland. They don't have school as this week was Parent Teacher Conference. I hope they like it! I hope I can pay attention to the movie! All I can think about is how excited I am to be in Africa.
I will really miss Calvin. He has drawn Zoe and I some fabulous pictures to put up in our hotel room. I will miss his crazy morning hair and all of his silly faces he makes. He has the best laugh I have ever heard in the world.

I will really miss Martin. I love when he falls asleep and is so peaceful. This is one of the few times I can pick him up and just hold him and he doesn't squirm to go play with toys. He is my comic relief and my company all day long. It will be hard being away from my boys.

We are so lucky as my parents are going to be taking care of the kids. Calvin and Martin are so excited that each morning this week they ask if we are finally leaving so they can stay with Nana and Papa.

So soon and I will be incredibly blessed with a beautiful daughter. How am I so lucky?

Court Date, Birthdays and Showers

2010-03-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

We finally got a court date. YAY!!! Zoe will be officially ours on March 8th. I am so excited that is one week from today. After that day I can post pictures of her. So, even though her court date is on the 8th we have decided to depart for Rwanda on March 7th. We won't arrive until the evening of March 9th. We will then be able to pick her up on March 10th. The reason why I am pushing this is because she will turn 2 on March 10th. I want to be there for her on her birthday. I am so excited!!!! So, even though I can't show you pictures of Zoe yet, I thought I would show you pictures of her nursery. This is my new favorite room in my house. I had so much fun decorating it. We also got some new photos of Zoe this past weekend. All I can say is that she is beautiful!!! I look at her picture all day!
And of course I will be blogging the entire time we will be in Rwanda and Kenya picking up our daughter.

Here is Zoe's crib. I know I can't seem to get enough of pink. The funny thing is that I have never been into pink. When I was a child I was and always have been a tomboy. I don't know what is happening to me, but I am really into pink. So, it's ok that her room is painted pink and her crib is even pink. I love it!!!

This is one of my favorite ways to decorate. I take rustic stars and paint them and cover them with scrapbook paper and ribbon. I have huge ones on my door for every holiday (my Easter ones are out right now) and smaller ones around my house. The Z above her crib is of course for Zoe. The crown I found at Rod Works. It isn't supposed to hang, but I had Josh drill a hole through it and into the wall. I then drapped thin white fabric around the crib. I also found the other 2 crown hooks at rod works. I have loved decorating this room!!!!

I got this dress form from Pottery barn. However, it was black and it didn't go in her room. I painted it white, threw on some neclaces and added a tutu with some flowers and ribbon. I don't know why- but this is one of my favorite things in her room. I guess because it is so girlie. I also put a mini dress form and tutu on her bedstand. After having only boys, I am really excited for girlie stuff!!

Here is Martin hanging out in Zoe's room. Josh did the beadboard in her room. I love it!!! The fairies on the top shelf in the corner belong to my sister Nicole (who Zoe is named after).

This will be Zoe's first doll. I will be bringing this doll with me and give it to her on her birthday. It comes with a little backpack for her to carry her doll and it is already filled with doll clothes, bottles, etc. Perfect for a little girl. Isn't it so sweet (I got it at American Girl). Also the cradle the doll is in was mine when I was little. However, I painted it green (the same color as the beadboard in her room), sanded it down and stained it. I'm so excited to pass this on to my daughter.

Here is Zoe's dollhouse. It is so cute and already filled with furniture and dolls that represent all of our family. Although Martin is amazed with this dollhouse and is constantly telling me where his doll will spend the day.

Martin just turned 4 and we had a superhero birthday party for him. We had so many kids come to Martin's birthday party that we did a bunch of the activities outside in our heated garage. They shot bad guys, made superhero masks and beat the batman pinata. We had so much fun! Everyone dressed up as their favorite superhero. Martin was Batman. Some of the girls came dressed as their favorite princess as they can still beat bad guys (as seen in Shrek).

All the little super hero's gathered around our kitchen table ready to scarf down the cupcakes. We had so much fun. I love our neighborhood as there are so many young families and tons of kids. We had 14 kids show up for Martin's birthday party and believe it or not some couldn't even come. It is a blast! And everyone is within walking distance of each other. If you can see out the windows there was a huge snowstrom going on during the party, but luckily no one had far to drive and we were all safe and warm inside fighting bad guys.

Martin eating his yummy super hero cupcakes

I still can't believe that Martin is 4!! How did that happen. Here we are as a family. We celebrated Sunday night with my parents and siblings. We had a lot of fun. Josh made a yummy meal and the boys got to wrestle with Uncle John. This was a perfect evening for the boys!! This will be our last family celebration without Zoe. I'm really looking forward to Easter. Even though she won't understand why she is looking for eggs and why I want her to sit on a big Easter Bunny's lap, we will all be together!

My friends did a Zoe celebration shower for me. We first went out to dinner with all the girls. Here we are at the Blue Lemon. It is such a yummy restaurant. We had a good time and I still can't believe we all fit together one one table!!! I have such good and wonderful friends! They have been cheering me on this entire time we have been trying to bring Zoe home.

Look at my kitchen!!! Isn't it amazing. I had to cut out part of it as it had a picture of Zoe and I can't post it yet. But this is what my friends did for me!!! So cute! After dinner we came back to my house as some of the girls were going to help me make my baby announcements (or actually toddler announcements) for Zoe. It was such a huge help. Now I only need to add a couple things before I can send them out!

I got to open presents for Zoe and got the cutest stuff. Lots of really cute outfits and hair bows. And I even got some mini girlie fingernail polish. I love it!!! So much girlie stuff is wonderful!!

Here are the adventurous ones who stuck around at my house to help me make Zoe's baby announcements.

Here are two of my best friends Jen and Trish. They are the ones who did the baby shower for me. This is their silliest face since it was finally almost over. Of course they are going to kill me for posting this!!!

So soon and we will be in Rwanda. I can't believe it. I will be able to post pictures of Zoe next monday (yay!!!) and then I will keep you updated on our trip. Please keep us in your prayers that everything will run smoothly for us and that Zoe will be able to do ok leaving the orphanage and coming home with us.

We are so grateful for all of your support, love and prayers that have been sent our way. We are so lucky to have amazing friends and family!!

By the way, if anyone is interested in sending money donations please let me know. Since there is only 2 of us we can only take so much luggage to Rwanda, without it costing too much. We are still bringing items such as formula, cloth diapers, and clothing to the orphanage, however we would like to buy a lot of items while we are there. We would like to do a truck load of food as well as more formula and other items they might need. If you would like to add anything please let me know.
Thanks!!!

What's in a name?

2010-02-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

Right now our paperwork has been signed and is with our lawyer in Rwanda. That means that we will soon have a court date and we will be able to post our daughter's photo as well as we can finally travel to Rwanda to pick her up. This really has been the longest 42 days of my life!!! I can't wait to go meet my baby girl.

So, I thought I would write about her name and why we chose it. Her current name at the orphanage is Lucie Uwimana. Although we love this name, the problem is that our last name is Soucy. And if you do not know how to pronounce Soucy, it is basically Lucie with an S at the beginning. So, Lucie Soucy does not work. We have decided to name our daughter... (drumroll please)...

Zoe Nicole Uwimana Soucy

First let's begin with Zoe. I love this name. It means Greek for life. I find that very fitting that her name means life because first I have always wanted a daughter and I feel such an honor to raise this little life from God. I also find it fitting because 1 out of every 5 children do not make it to their 5th birthday in Rwanda and the life expectancy in Africa is 35 years old. So, I feel that not only is she giving me the gift of life, but we are also giving her the gift of life. The other neat thing about her name is that one of my very best friends Trish and her mom both had dreams about Zoe the same night. As soon as they told me I knew that this would be her name.

Her second name is Nicole. This name is also very special to me. Last April when we decided to adopt from Africa we told my sister our plan. She was so excited she couldn't wait for us to adopt. I think that she was the most excited person in our entire family. She said she would do anything to be there with me. The next month my sister passed away. We decided that we could honor her life and give her name to Zoe. I know that Nicole is watching over Zoe right now and protecting her until we are able to get her. I love Nicole so much and am so grateful that I can give her name to my daughter.

Her third name is Uwimana. This is her African name. I feel that this is one of the only things that she will be bringing back with her from Rwanda. Most everything else we will be changing. So, I am grateful that we can keep her name for a second middle name. The other reason why I love this name so much is that it means "daughter of God". How fitting, because this is exactly how I feel about her. I only hope that I can do her justice in being a mother to this amazing child.

Her last name of course is Soucy. This came with the man that I agreed to marry almost 11 years ago. I am so blessed that he is with me and he also shares the vision I have of adoption and the children out there there that are waiting for us to bring them home.

I am hoping to post pictures of the nursery soon. Another of my best friends is painting a picture for our nursery. I hope it will be done this week. As soon as it is done I can hang it on the wall and post pictures of her room. It is my favorite room in the house. Very pink!!! I find myself just sitting in there all the time. I can't wait to go in there and find Zoe waiting for me.

One more thing. Because we are going to Rwanda soon, we are collecting items for donations. If you have anything that you would like to donate please contact me and I will tell what we are going to bring to the orphanage.

Have a splendid night!

Something nice

2010-02-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

It has been 1 month and 5 days since we have received the picture of Zoe. Although sometimes I don't think I can wait another minute and am ready to get on a plane to Rwanda and fight my way through to get her court date set I know that I must have patience.

I found out a while ago that there have been changes in employment in Rwanda in the department that handles the adoptions. I also found out that my paperwork is (and has been for a while) just sitting there waiting for one signature. I almost started crying when I found this out. No one knew when things would start up again and when they would hire someone to "sign" my paper.

Today I got an email from Children of All Nations (my adoption agency). They said that our representative in Rwanda went over today to introduce herself to the office that can "sign" my paper. It is my understanding that she went to introduce her to the new employee who can help me get closer to Zoe. I hope this is the case and that we will soon have our paper signed. Will you please keep me in your prayers that our papers will be signed and our court date will be soon.

However, I also found out something nice. My representative in Rwanda went and bought Zoe some clothes and toys and dropped them off to her. I know this sounds silly, but I almost cried with tears of joy that someone was willing to do something nice to my daughter.

Hopefully we will have some good news soon and I can finally post the picture of our daughter. I will let you know as soon as our court date is set.

Thank you in advance for all of your prayers!!

Thailand Pictures while we wait

2010-02-07T20:39:00.000-08:00

So we still don't have a court date yet for Zoe (the name of our daughter). We will let you know. However, I thought I would upload some photos of our trip to Thailand. We arrived there in New Years Eve. It was really fun.

Some neat news though is that in the past few weeks there were 9 families who were able to Journey to Rwanda and adopt 12 kids (3 families adopted 2 kids each). While they were there, two of the families were able to meet little Zoe. I was so excited!! They told her that her mommy loved her very much and was coming to get her really soon. I am so grateful for these families to find her. It gives me such a good feeling to know that she is ok. Please keep us in your prayers so that we can pick her up soon. We really need a court date soon! Once this is done then we can travel over and pick her up.
Well, in the meantime- here are some photos of our trip to Thailand.

While we were in Thailand we went to an area where you can play with tigers. Me, Josh and my brothers (Brandon & Spencer) and my sister (lindsay) went in with the big tigers. Then later we took our kids to play with the baby tigers. An incredible experience!

Here I am lying down on a sleeping tiger. YIKES!! He fell asleep about 5 minutes before we went in the cage. Lucky us- so I got to lay right on top of him. But trust me I was still poised and ready to run like mad if he woke up!!

Me with the big tiger. It was really neat to be able to pet a tiger. They are really soft.

Josh with his big tiger!

When we were in with the big tigers they were playing with them right in front of us. We were all wet, but it was totally worth it. However, all I can say is if you have never been 3 feet away from a grown tiger and no cage in between you and he is staring at you in the eye- you do not know what fear is. It is one of the scariest things I have ever done!

Martin with the baby tigers. We loved hanging out with the baby tigers. They were so cute (but still dangerous!)

Calvin playing with a baby tiger.

Martin with a sparkler on New Years Eve in Thailand.

Our Thai friend Anong got us all these special type of balloons that you light up at the bottom and the fire causes it to rise in the air. When it goes up you will just see a bright light. It was really fun! It is a Thai tradition. So happy we got to participate. New Years was a blast!

Here is Josh letting go of his baloon. The sky was lit up with these all night in Thailand. It was beautiful. They would stay up in the air around 2 hours and then float down. When we went up to our hotel room we could see hundreds of thousands of them all lit up for New Years Eve.

Here is our entire group on New Years Eve that went on the trip to Thailand. All of our wonderful family and friends. We had so much fun!!!

Josh and Calvin crossing the river on the elephant ride.

Martin and I were on one elephant together. We went through rivers and jungle. The kids loved it!

We rode bamboo rafts down the river after our elephant ride. It was very green and beautiful!

We went to a long neck village in Chaing Mai. It is a very difficult life for these women to wear these rings around their neck. They are incredibly heavy. I have no idea how they do it.

My boys with a cute little family. Aren't the kids darling!!<

All the women would make different scarves or other items to sell. The women were all so beautiful!! That's me- the plain one!

At a snake show up in Chaing Mai. This guy kissed a King Cobra. I still have nightmares about it. However, it is now Calvin's favorite animal. He was very impressed.

Calvin actually holding a snake. This was huge for him!! Martin was very excited to kiss a large python. The snake show was a huge hit for the boys!

Picture of the boys at a theme park in Phuket, Thailand.

We always get so sad to leave Thailand. But it has been great to be home. Especially since we must do so much to get ready for our little Zoe to come home.

Please keep us in your prayers that we will soon have a court date for Zoe. We want to get her as soon as possible and bring her home to her family.

While we are waiting...

2010-01-25T16:22:00.000-08:00

So I still have not yeard yet when our court date will be so I can not yet show you a picture of Zoe (our little girl) I thought I would show you all pictures from our trip that we took for almost 3 weeks to Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. We left the day after Christmas and headed straight to Vietnam, then to Cambodia and ended in Thailand. We had a wonderful time. My sister Lindsay came with us to Cambodia and Vietnam and we met up with the rest of my family once we got to Thailand. It's crazy to think that the next time we take a family vacation we will have 3 children. YIKES! We will finally be outnumbered!!
I know there are so many things to pray about right now, especially with everything that is going on over in Haiti, but right now I am asking that you also keep our family in your prayers.
We had to change our immigration forms with the U.S. government because our application was for a 0-18 month old girl and our daughter is actually almost 2. It can take up to 3 to 4 months to get this application changed.
We would really like to pick her up in February or the first week of March at the very latest. So, will you please pray that we will be able to pick her up soon and that our paperwork will be done in the next couple of weeks!! We don’t want to wait until April or May to get her!
I was at the immigration office today begging and pleading to get her here. I am going to keep going every week until it is done. So- thank you for any prayer you send our way!

Here we are in Vietnam. We went to the Cu Chi tunnels which is where the Vietnamese soldiers hid out during the war. We saw lots of boobie traps and it was really sad to see all of this from the war. Vietnam is still Communist but is doing good. However, we learned some very crazy things about their country. They have a lot of orphans and that is so sad. I just wish more people were willing to adopt children, as there are so many out there who need our help. Vietnam was nice to see. I wish we were able to get out to the more greener part of Vietnam, but that is a long drive and we didn't have much time to go there. However, we did make it Hard Rock Cafe.

Here is what all the houses look like in Cambodia. They are built on stilts because of the flooding. We loved Cambodia. I must say that it was one of the most remarkable places I have ever visited (and considering the fact that I have visited around 100 countries that means a lot!!) We all enjoyed Cambodia and thought it very beautiful!

Here we are on Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia. This is a place where people actually live right on the water. It was neat to go and visit this place. I realize how lucky I am to have this nice house on dry land.

The main method of transportation. There are hundreds of people who live on this lake.

Here is kind of how the houses all look in a row. They fish during the day and then just sleep and hang out the rest of the day. The children take their own boat to their floating school.

Here is just a typical house on the lake.

Little girls waving hello. It was so cute because everyone was loving my boys. I don't think they see too many white children in Cambodia. Everyone especially loved Martin! He would bow to each person he met, and he would be loved and touched by everyone!

We spent a lot of time looking at all the ruins in Cambodia (with the most famous one Angkor Wat). The ruins were incredible! I have never seen such beautiful and amazing ruins as these. We have been able to travel all around the world and I was blown away with these ruins. Calvin and Martin were very excited as when I showed him the picture before we went he said they were the Indiana Jones Temple so we let him believe it. He even was able to find a hat from a local market that looked just like an Indiana Jones hat before we got to the ruins. The boys had so much fun. Lots of ruins, monkeys and adventure around every corner!

It was so hot while we went all over Cambodia. We were sweating like crazy. However, it was totally worth it to see what we saw! And believe it or not, this was actually their cool time of the year!

Aren't my boys so cute! Here they are with some locals dressed up in the old style of clothing that they would wear around the royalty.

Martin wearing a scarf around his little sweaty head! Just taking a rest. We walked for miles and miles. They did so well!

All throughout the ruins were these huge trees growing right around and through the buildings. It made the sites look even more ancient and fun.

If you have seen Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie, where this is where it was filmed.

Yummy! We loved Cambodian food. It isn't too spicy so we could eat everything!

Cal just walking around one of the many ruins. We had so much fun exploring. It is the best place on the earth for little boys to explore!

Here we are at the back of Angkor Wat. This is the biggest and one of the most famous ruins. It is absolutely incredible. Believe me, the pictures do not do any of these sites justice. It is amazing to be standing right in front of these sites!

Here is Calvin with our guide Seth and Josh. This was Calvin's face almost the entire time we were going through Angkor Wat (because he was of course going through Indiana Jones Fortress). It was so fun to see him and his excitement.

Here is the entrance of Angkor Wat. We were so sad that we finally had to leave all of these amazing and beautiful ruins. This was definetly one of the best places we have visited.
I'll try to post the pictures of Thailand soon. It has been crazy since we got home from our trip. We are getting everything ready for our little girl and trying to catch up on everything we missed while we were away.
It is good to be home and I am nesting like crazy!!! My poor boys. I think I am organizing every room in our home!
Well, I'll post more pictures soon!

Exciting News!

2010-01-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

We are in Thailand right now. Last night we went to an elephant show in Phuket. We got back to our villa around 12:30 at night (which was just when our adoption agency in Texas was open). I asked them if they had heard anything yet. I knew that I would sleep much better if I wasn't waiting all night long for an email. They hadn't received anything yet. So I fell asleep not knowing what was going to happen next.

Around 3:30am I got a phone call from Claire (our amazing representative from Children of All Nations). She said that she received our picture and was forwarding it on to me.

I couldn't even believe it. I just was shaking as I was trying to download the picture.

Unfortuantely I can't show the picture yet as they first must go to court for us in Rwanda. Then after they go to court she belongs to us and is our daughter! Then I can show pictures.

What I can tell you is that she is almost 2 years old and is beautiful. I can't wait to hold her in my arms. They don't have much more information for us. She is healthy (although very skinny) and she was abandonded right after birth. We are the luckiest family to have her!

I'll post more as soon as I know more!

Whoo Hoo!!!!!!!

Some News but no photo yet

2009-12-14T08:37:00.001-08:00

Sorry it has been a crazy few months. We still have not received a photo yet, however we did receive our acceptance letter from the Ministry of Rwanda. Our adoption agency (Children of All Nations) representative in Rwanda has it right now. She also said that on Monday January 4th, she should receive our photo and child's information. She is going to try and scan it for us and email it. If she does this then we could possible see her picture Monday or Tuesday. If not, she will mail it to our adoption agency. This could take a week for them to get it. We are just so excited to know that we are so close to receiving our information.

Right now we are in Thailand anxiously waiting to see a picture of our little girl. I will post any information as soon as I have it. Unfortunately I won't be able to post any pictures until they go to court for us in Rwanda. But I will give you as much information as I can. Aren't my boys cute? They are so excited to see their sister. Anytime I say their names they ask "Did you get a picture of our sister?" What an exciting New Year!!!

Sorry I have posted so many pictures. I have been so busy and have not been able to blog. And so much has happened with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here is our family in Hawaii. We went to Hawaii with our kids, my parents and my siblings. My friends even joined us there. We went to the island of Kauia. I love it there! It is one of my favorite islands. We didn't do anything but just hang out on the beach!

Here is the entire family enjoying a dinner in Hawaii.

Thanksgiving on the beach! How fun! We ate our turkey dinner together as a family. It was beautiful and warm (not like the snow at home!)

Here is me with my friend (and next door neighbor) Dayna and my sister Lindsay. We were so lucky because Dayna and her son Ashton came with us on our trip to Hawaii. it was so much fun!

Josh with our boys.

This is the best babysitter we have found. The kids would stay in the holes for at least 20 minutes. They loved it and we loved it also he he!

The month of December flew by. We did a lot of fun stuff with the kids. We went to our church party and had yummy scones and Santa came.

Calvin is doing french immersian at school. This means that half of his day is spoken only in French and the other half in English. He was in a french play in school of Rudolf. It was so cute. He played a bear who liked magic. I didn't understand a word of the play but was so proud of him!

We did a lot of fun activities before Christmas. Here we are at breakfast with the Grinch and Santa. We also went on the Polar Express Train (really the Heber Creeper) and we also took Calvin to see the Nutcracker. It was a fun and busy December.

My entire family went to dinner for Christmas Eve. After we went back to my home. The kids got their jammies and opened a present.

Here is the tree at 5:30am. The kids were begging to go down. I always go down first to make sure that Santa came. I also took this picture before all chaos errupted.

Christmas morning is one of my favorite days of the year. Here are the boys just coming down. Martin immediately saw his bike and jumped on it. We had so much fun opening presents together. I was also excited this morning because I got a Kindle (which I really wanted) and Santa surprised us with snowboard racks for my car. This will be so helpful when we all go up and not get the back of our car messy!

Josh and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary this year. He has had a wedding ring for 10 years that is so basic and really scratched up. Here he is with his new ring I gave him. I think he didn't get much sleep last night. Actually neither of us did! Christmas Eve is a long night!

My parents came over to our home with my siblings to celebrate Christmas with us early. My parents got each other the same gift- The Kindle. We all knew and were laughing when they opened them the same time.

My mom and I got matching jackets.

This is a picture of Martin with my cousin's little girl Alissa. Isn't she so beautiful? She was adopted and it was completely finalized right before Christmas. It is always so fun to see her! It makes me even more excited to finalize my adoptions!

Martin had a lot of fun eating all the pies on Christmas at my mom's house. Especially the whip cream.
This was such a fun Christmas. It was just crazy because the day after Christmas we left for Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. We are now in Thailand as I am trying to catch up on our blog. We are having an amazing time!
We'll keep you posted on our updates with our daughter. I am also going to post some pictures tomorrow of our trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. We love you all!
Happy New Year!

Next Week

2009-11-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

So today I got an email stating that next week they hope to send me a photo of my little daughter. My daughter. I held my breath for a while so that I wouldn't scream and wake my boys. I am so excited.
First though- Next week could mean 2 or 3 weeks later in African time but that is so much quicker than I ever expected. I had been waiting so long that I wasn't expecting a photo until January or February. Now that still could happen. But I felt so good to see that it could be as soon as next week.
The crazy thing is that we will be in Hawaii next week. Thank goodness for emails. I hope to be emailed a picture soon. What an awesome week that would be. Spending time on a beach in Hawaii with all of my family and being able to share a photo of our daughter.
Everyone keep us in your prayers. Especially our little daughter.
Thanks!!

Adoption Today Magazine

2009-10-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

We are so excited as we have been spotlighted in the Adoption Today Magazine. This is a great magazine that has lots of amazing articles on adoption. You can find the magazine at adoptinfo.net

Well, for the month of October they were doing an article on Rwanda. They are trying to get it out there that Rwanda is a great option and hopefully more people will begin adopting from there.

A couple of months ago my adoption agency (Children of All Nations) asked me a bunch of questions regarding our adoption. I went ahead and answered them. They contacted me a few weeks later to ask if our family wouldn't mind being in the magazine as a spotlight. I said of course. They used my quotes in the magazine from the questions I had answered earlier. It is so fun for our family to see our picture in the magazine. My boys love it. They can't wait to have their little sister here.

As far as our adoption is concerned we are still waiting for the approval letter from the ministry in Rwanda. I am hoping that it comes by the end of the month (as that is when they said it should be here).

Our family is doing well. We just got back from a Mexican Riviera cruise. It was fun. I will try to post pictures later as I am having trouble with my pictures on the computer. Keep our little girl in your prayers.

Affordable Adoption

2009-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

Alright- here is one of the biggest concerns for adoption- Can we afford it?
Well, there are many ways to help make adoptions affordable.
Here are just a few tips that I have found from myself or others thinking of adopting.

1. I think that if you decide to adopt that many times the sources will just appear to help you with your decision. Why would God (or the Universe) not want to help you out if you decide to help out with a child. For me personally I have found that God has been with me all along the way helping our family come up with the necessary funds for this adoption. If you have read the book "the secret" that is another way that you can get help. If you put it out into the Universe, the Universe will send it back to you.

2. Service or Charitable Contributions. There are many things that you can personally do to earn money. Below are just some ideas.
* Neighborhood Garage Sale: This is something that I did. I sent out fliers around my neighborhood explaining that we were collecting all unused items to sell in our garage sale. Many items were donated for this sale. We were able to raise a bunch of money to go towards the adoption and the orphanage.
* Bake Sale: I know of many people who have made cinnamon rolls or pizzas or other type of food items. You can either set up a stand in a place with lots of traffic and try to sell your items (we actually sold a ton of cookies, cupcakes and cinnamon rolls at our garage sale) or you can actually go around your neighborhood and take orders for food items. I know of another family adopting that raised over $3,000 taking orders and making cinnamon rolls.
* Selling t-shirts: There is a great website called annifororphans.com. This company allows you to create a design for a shirt, or they can help you create one. After you have a shirt created you are able to sell and it keep all the profit. This is awesome. I am actually in the process of designing a shirt right now and will hopefully have it up and running soon.

3. Adoption Tax Credit: When you adopt you are able to have a tax credit. Although the amount might be changing you will still be able to have an adoption tax credit for that year. Right now the credit is $12,150.

4. Adoption Financial Aid: There are many different places who will help you financially afford the adoption. If you google international adoption financial assistance- you will be shown many different sites that you can assist you.

5. Employment: Many larger companies actually have plans that can assist with your adoption costs. The other option is to ask your employer if there is anything the company can do to assist with your costs.

6. Donations: Some people are not in the position to have another child, however financially they may be able to assist in helping you have your child. If you have a blog or myspace or anything like that you can actually set it up to receive donations. Sometimes just getting the knowledge out there that you are interested in adopting but need help, you will find that someone may volunteer to help you.

I am sure there are many other ways to pay for adoption. If anyone else has any tips please post them.
Adoption is a huge investment, but I know that it is all worth it in the end, especially when you are able to hold that child in your arms for the first time.

I Saw What I Saw

2009-09-15T20:54:00.000-07:00

15 years ago a plane went down in Rwanda carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana. The Hutu people immediately claimed that the RPF shot the plane down. This began the most devestating 100 days on earth as neighbors killed neighbors and family killed family. 1,000,000 million dead in 100 days.

I saw this video a while ago when the anniversary of the genocide happened (in April), however for some reason I found it again. I feel very touched as my daughter is in Rwanda right now. Her birth mother very well could have witnessed this destruction. It might be this past destruction that caused her to give up her child that will soon be in our family. I am so grateful and feel such sadness for this strong birth mother. I am so grateful for these strong Rwandan people. I am so grateful for my daughter who has no idea that she will soon be with her family. Tonight our family will say an extra special prayer to bless all of those in Rwanda. I ask that you all do the same.

Please watch this amazing video of the people of Rwanda. Maybe you can understand how beautiful the people are and why we can't wait to bring one of these children home.

Two Year Log in Date- There is always a plan!

2009-09-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

When you do an adoption from China the moment your paperwork is in China you receive a log in date. Well, my log in date was September 12, 2007. This means that for 2 years my paperwork has been waiting in China. I must say that up until last May this had been very difficult for me becuase I felt like I had a daughter out there that was never coming to our family. However, last May that all changed.

The reason why I am bringing this up is because Heavenly Father always has a plan. When we were filling out our paperwork for China it took us a long time as were always out of country with my company. So basically it took us over a year to get it all finished. If we were able to finish it earlier we would not be waiting so long. But the wait is actually good.

There are so many people who are adopting from China and that is awesome. But it is also causing a huge waiting time as China only allows so many kids out of the country each month. However, for me that is good.

The reason why I am saying this is Heavenly Father knew that I needed to pick up a little girl from Rwanda. He knew that if I did not need to wait I would not be in tune to His plan. I would do China and who knows if I would do anything more. However, I was slow with the process and I got behind many others who were also adopting from China. And here I am sitting at my computer knowing that my paperwork is in Rwanda and in a few months I will have a daughter. My paperwork is also in China and I know in a couple of years I will have another daughter. I am glad that I had to wait for China. I know it will still happen and I am still very excited to get her but it is this waiting time that is allowing me to have two daughters instead of one.

Our Rwanda Adoption

2009-09-07T07:19:00.001-07:00

Life has been very crazy lately and so unfortunately I have not visited my blog in such a long time. Finally I feel that it is time to begin posting again- especially since some exciting news is happening in our family.

We have been in the process of adopting from China (over 3 years if you include the time spent working on our dossier and waiting time). It has been such a trial waiting for this little girl to come home. However, although we are still waiting for China we are excited to begin adopting from Rwanda as well.

Here is our story.
Last April my husband and I were in Africa. While we were there I felt that we were supposed to adopt from Africa. I told my husband in Africa that I felt we were to adopt in Africa. However, our agency only works with China and I didn't want to switch agencies and also we thought we would get our little girl from China in the next year or so.

The day after we got home from Africa we got an email from our Adoption Agency Great Wall that they now will have another division called CAN (Children of All Nations) and they allow you to adopt from Rwanda. We then called Great Wall and asked for the most realistic timeline for China. It would be around another 2 1/2 years. Well, after some heavy praying (even though I already had received an answer in Africa) I knew that we were to get a little girl from Rwanda as well as our girl from China.

We put in our paperwork in April and got accepted. We then began putting together our dossier in May. Another life changing experience happened in May. My little sister (who was 30 years old) died. Although this has been a difficult year I am so happy that I can focus all of my energy on bringing this little girl to our family. We are going to give our little girl from Rwanda the middle name of Nicole (which is my sister's name).

Right now our paperwork is in Rwanda awaiting acceptance from the Rwandan Ministry. I will try to write up a timeline soon so anyone else interested in finding out information on Rwanda they can look at what our experiences have been. We know there are so many children outside of the children (and so many orphans in Africa) so we would love to answer any questions that anyone might have regarding adoptions.

We are hoping to get a refferal sometime in October or November. I will keep you all posted on what is happening. I also just finished her nursery. I hope to post pictures very soon.

Panama Canal

2008-05-28T08:30:00.001-07:00

Here are the boys at our first stop on the Panama Canal cruise in the Dominican Republic.

We were gone for 17 days and had a blast. We began in San Juan and spent a couple of nights there before boarding our cruise ship. The stops we visited were Dominican Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, Huatulco Mexico, Acapulco Mexico, Cabo San Lucas Mexico and ended in San Francisco. And of course we went through the Panama Canal. It was a beautiful cruise and the kids had a blast! Here are just a few of the pictures from the trip.

Here is a nice church in Dominican Republic. There was a wedding going on inside while we were there.

This is the one of the forts in Cartagena, Colombia. They built these forts to keep out mainly pirates. The spanish kept a lot of their gold on the land- so many people were trying to get it.

The streets were very clean. The balconies were covered in flowers and were beautiful. I was very impressed how nice it was in Cartagena. I really want to go back and see more!

The ship had a lot of fun things to do, especially for the kids. But they mainly liked to swim in the kid pool with the waterslide and play golf with daddy.

These are the locks that we were just going through for the canal. They are very impressive. I read a great book about the Panama Canal called The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough. I can not believe how many lives it took to build this waterway. It is amazing!

Here we are eating lunch up on the top deck as we are going through the Panama Canal.

Here we are at the dock for Costa Rica.

Cabi is so beautiful. It has been a couple of years since we were last here. Everytime I go there I forget how beautiful it is.

We saw lots of seals. Martin loves to immitate them.

The kids were able to pet lizards.

This was our last night on the cruise. The kids will miss the different animals each night made out of towels and the chocolate on their pillows (or actually on Calvin's face for this picture!) We are always so sad to go home!

Finally the end of Antarctica

2008-03-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

I am finally finishing my Antarctica trip. I am not going into much detail about the remaining places I saw, but I am just posting some of my favorite sites and pictures from the trip. This honestly is in my top 5 of places to visit. This trip has been a life changing trip for me. I am so thankful that I was able to see this beautiful part of the world. So, here are a few of my many pictures that I took.

We went to the Polish station and it was amazing. On the beach in front of us were 23 huge (longer than me) sea elephants. They just laid there the entire day while we were walking around. They would make loud snorting noises and every now and then shift positions but mainly they just hung out. I really enjoyed this stop.

We saw so many whale bones littered all throughout Antarctica. This is part of the Polish station.

We made a bunch more stops but here was another stop that I really loved. This used to be the base for Argentina. Now some people are here, but it is mainly the penguins who live here.

We climbed up this huge hill and then proceeded to slide down on our bum. It was very fast and fun. The worst part was when you would suddenly hit a jump, then land hard and keep going. I loved it!!!

Here are a few more pictures of penguins. I love penguins. It was such an experience I will never foget sitting among hundreds of penguins. They would waddle right by you. They are such beautiful animals.

Here is a cute little Adelie penguin.

Here are just some of my favorite scenery shots that I haven't posted yet. We saw hundreds of glaciers and thousands of iceburgs. I also have thousands of amazing pictures that were hard to pick but here are some of my favs!

Beautiful... Gorgeous... Wish you were here!!!!! Oh and no I didn't tint the pictures. The more blue in the iceburg the more compact it is.

A big shock for me were all of the many peaks, mountains and volcanoes that I saw in Antarctica it just isn't white!

Isn't this beautiful?! This is a huge tabular iceburg. They can sometimes be even longer than a mile. We saw quite a few of these. They are huge! They don't come from glaciers and they are long and flat. I loved these iceburgs!

Believe it or not but this picture was taken at about 11:30pm. The sun never completely set at night. It was very eerie and beautiful to walk out on deck in the middle of the night. It can actually be brighter but it had been snowing.

Well this is our final rough day at sea. This is the Cape Horn. We were about to get off the ship here but about 20 minutes before we began to unload a huge storm came up. I was just glad I wasn't on shore when the storm came and got stuck there. This was very beautiful with the waves and there were dozens of albatross birds flying in between the waves. It was an honor to sail around this area with a storm as more sailors have died here than any other place in the world. But I was also incredibly sad to leave. I will never forget the amazing sights I have seen.

Antarctica Part 4- Animal Life

2008-02-24T10:05:00.001-08:00

Humback Whales are amazing! We saw over a hundred whales while we were on our ship.

It was very difficult to get any pictures of the whales jumping out of the water. They would go down for about 5 to 10 minutes before they jumped out of the water and they could come up anywhere. I was just lucky to see them breach (jump out of the water). The best one I saw was of a mother and a baby together but unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at that time.

We saw the most beautiful iceburgs. They were all thousands of years old and huge. We had staff on board to lecture us about the wildlife, glaciers, etc. One of them compared an iceburg to a piece of ice floating in your drink. The tiny piece of ice that shows above the liquid that you are drinking is similar to an iceburg. The majority of the ice (about 5/6th) is below the surface. We had to be very careful cruising through the water.

This picture just shows you how close we would get to the whales. Our Captain was awesome! Because we were in a smaller boat he would follow some whales until we found more and then he would move on and follow them. We would spend hours following the different whales in between our stops on land.

Whenever you saw the tail come up you you knew that most likely they were going to dive down for a few minutes. I think I have about 500 different tail pictures. I am only posting a few.

I know the picture can not do the iceburgs justice. They were spectacular!

One of my favorite parts of the iceburgs were the colors. I thought they were just white but they can be light blue and bright turqoise as well.

This is a common site. We would often see iceburgs filled with seals or penguins. This is a baby leapord seal sitting on an iceburg.

Most whales travel together. This is a mommy and baby traveling together.

This is a whale coming down from breaching. The sun was so bright so it was a difficult picture to get.

Here is another seal sitting on the ice.

The whales also like to roll around. Here he is rolling around waving his fins at us saying hello.

Well here is the end for today. I will try to post some more penguins and the huge elephant seals that we saw on shore tomorrow!

Antarctica- Part 3 Cuverville and Neko Harbour

2008-02-20T11:55:00.000-08:00

Aren't these penguins so cute!!! These are gentoo penguins. Most of the penguins we saw had babies that were about 1 month old. They were so cute. The first thing I noticed when we landed at Cuverville Island was that it really smelled. Penguins do not smell that good. But then I noticed how cute they were and I got over it!
If you want to get a good look at any of these pictures click on them to make them bigger.

Here is me with my family just after we landed. Notice all the penguins behind us.

Here are some more penguins. We saw hundreds if not thousands of penguins while we were in Antarctica. The penguins would all live in one area.

Isn't this sweet? These babies were born late. They were only about 2 weeks old. Unfortunately this means they probably won't make it during the winter. The mom was keeping them warm as the dad was building the nest. Notice him setting the little rock around the mother. Most of the mother penguins were cuddling or feeding the babies as the penguin fathers were building the nests. It was fascinating to watch this out in the open.

We left Cuverville Island and headed over to Neko Harbour. We were excited to reach Neko Harbour because we were finally making a stop on the mainland of Antarctica instead of just the islands.

When we arrived at Neko Harbour my family and I decided to hike through the snow up to the top of this hill to get a good view. This is where we were climbing to. We had to be very careful hiking and not leave the trail as the ice and snow could always cave in and someone could fall quite a ways down.

Here we are climbing.

Here we are at the top. Isn't it beautiful? It was definetly worth the hike!

While we were up there we next to a huge glacier. We were able to see lots of calving (when the snow drops). It would begin by a loud bang noise and then you would see the snow drop down. This one was cascading like a waterfall.

The next two pictures are one of my favorites. I had just climbed down the mountain and had my camera ready as I was looking at the glacier when this huge chunk fell into the sea.

This is the splash the glacier left.

This is a very typical site we saw on most of our landings. The beach was always covered with ice. Some small pieces like these and others were huge- bigger than me.

Here is a gentoo penguin feeding her babies.

The penguins love to swim. They loved to jump in to the water. They would also swim alongside the boat with you. They would jump in and out of the water wherever we went. I loved watching how playful they were.

The next couple of pictures are just of the scenery as we were in our little boat going back to our ship.

I know it is ridculous the amount of pictures I am posting on my blog but believe it or not I took over 2,000 pictures on this trip. So, I can't help but post quite a few. The only thing I can say is that unfortunately the pictures do not do it justice!

I love the light blue that surrounded every iceburg we saw. Tomorrow I will post again and I will post more iceburgs and finally my pictures of the humpback whales and seals. For now I am going to get warm with hot cocoa and remember all the amazing things I was able to witness in Antarctica!

Antarctica- Part 2- First Landing

2008-02-19T07:01:00.001-08:00

I would like to begin by saying that I really believe Antarctica to be one of the most beautiful places on earth- that said- I would not put our first stop as one of the most beautiful places in Antarctica.

We crossed the Drake passage and lucked out. This is one of the stormiest places on earth. Luckily we didn't encounter a storm. The waves rolled the entire time we were crossing and because we were in a smaller boat we did feel every wave. We finally began to spot iceburgs. The day we arrived it was very overcast with a mixture of rain and snow. The iceburgs look very different in the sun.

Here is a picture of Deception Island from our ship. Deception Island is an active volcano which is why the island is all black.

Every morning we would begin the same ritual. We would get up put on all of our warm clothes and wait for them to call us ashore. Antarctica will only allow 100 people ashore in one place at one time. When we are called we go down to the bottom of the ship into a room where we put on our boots.

Here is a picture of all of us ready to go out for the first time. We were all so excited because we were finally finishing a goal of stepping on all 7 continents.

After we go outside we climb down some stairs onto these boats. These boats hold 8 people and they are running people back and forth to our ship. They can go pretty fast.

The first thing I noticed when we got to Deception Island is of course all of the garbage that has been left behind. When Antarctica was first being discovered many people were leaving behind all sorts of stuff. Each country has left behind their own garbage dumb. Some people are trying to clean it up but it is taking some time.

Deception Island used to be a a factory for the whalers remains. When people first were whaling their ships could not take care of the whales remains so they would drop off all the items they didn't need from the whale to these factories. They would then take care of the remains. It wasn't too long before they built whaler ships big enough to handle every part of the whale. When this happened the factory was abanded.

It was a joke the entire time we were at Deception Island that we were walking on the moon. There was an eerie quiet about the area. Even though I have been away from people before I have never been anywhere where there are no people or wildlife. The island is very dark covered in garbage and whale bones.

I can not imagine living here in this desolute area. The houses couldn't have kept the residents very warm. It would have been a very difficult life.

I can not imagine dying here either. We would find crosses all over Antarctica. Because of the harsh climate and no medical equipment many people would die.

But on a lighter note- I could have died after what we did next. Yes- I feel like I am part of the Polar Bear club! I did go swimming in Antarctica. It was freezing. Here is Emily (my sister-in-law) and I running out of the water. Spencer (my brother) had just come out of the water and was laughing at us. The worst part was that I couldn't breathe!!! It took every ounce of my strength to keep running into the water until I ducked under. The only way you could get the certificate from the ship for swimming in Antarctica was if the water went up to your neck- I went in twice and the second time I actually went under water. That was dumb! BRRRRR!!!!!!!!

Here is a picture of Lindsay and I right after our swim and before we left Deception Island. Let's just say that went I got back on the ship I had one of the best hot showers I have ever had!
Our next stop is where we first encounter penguins. I will try to post those tomorrow!

Antarctica- the beginning Argentina

2008-02-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

I just got back from Antarctica and still can not get the amazing scenes of my voyage out of my head. I decided that the only way to blog this would be each day I would focus on a few days from my trip. I can not do the entire trip on one blog entry. I hope you don't mind. I am beginning with Argentina. The picture above is the balcony where Evita and then Madonna spoke (or sang) to the people of Argentina. I really like Buenos Aires. We had a great time walking around. The city is very European. We visited many cute little cities. The Tango is very popular here. You will see people either painting pictures of the tango or dancing the tango on the streets.

When we were finished with Buenos Aires we flew to Ushuaia (which is the southern most part of Argentina). This is where the Tierra del Fuego is. They call Ushuaia fin del mundo (or end of the world). We spent the rest of our time in Argentina in Ushuaia. Below are some pictures of the national park of Tierra del Fuego. The mountains were beautiful. We had excellent weather- we really lucked out. Actually we lucked out with weather the entire tour.

Here is me with my siblings. I went with my parents and siblings on this tour. Josh, my husband was so nice to stay home and help out with our 2 children. I am so grateful for him because if he didn't help out I would never have been able to go.

Here is a picture of our ship the Nordic Norge. This is the ship that we voyaged out to the great unknown!!! We boarded the ship in the evening. We left that night around 10:00 pm to begin our crossing of the Drake Passage. I will blog tomorrow about crossing the Drake and our first landing in Antarctica!

Antarctica

2008-02-03T15:58:00.000-08:00

So, I am on the cruise through Antarctica. I am not able to download any pictures yet because the internet is incredibly slow on the ship. I will try to update them as soon as I get home. I just needed to say that this trip has been one of the most incredibly trips I have ever been on. I have seen thousands of penguins up close. I have watched humpback whales jump out of the water over and over again. I have been on the beach next to dozens of elephant seals. I have seen the calm waters filled with ice and iceburgs. It is beautiful here. I will try to post pictures and explain the different things that I have seen as soon as I get home. I just wanted everyone to know that I am well and we are having a wonderful time. I miss everyone! If anyone sees my boys- give them hugs and kisses from me! I will see you all soon!

Catching up on Holidays!

2008-01-14T18:51:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it? I am finally writing in my blog!!!!
Well the holidays came and went and they were fabulous!!!! Except for the fact that I got pnemonia!!! Christmas Eve was so much fun. We went to dinner with my family and then we went to my house and opened our traditional pj's!! Yeah!!! Martin wouldn't take off the Santa hat- he loves hats!!

Cal was putting on his pj's and I told him I could see his belly buttom- of course he had to hide it from me!

We were so lucky this year because Aunt Jessica (Josh's sister from Massachusetts) came and stayed with us during the holidays! Calvin loves to pinch her like a lobster- so I am sure that she went home with lots of little pinchy bruises! The kids just love her! She is such an amazing Aunt.

Here is our Christmas tree in the morning- and yes- Santa did come. I wondered if he would as I am sure Calvin did as well, but luckily for Calvin he showed up!!

Oh- the famous coming down the stairs scene! Christmas night Jessica and Rebecca (josh's other sister) spent the night. I am sure they have never woken up so early for Christmas since they were little! Actually we did luck out. Calvins slept in until 7:20 (this is a world record for him on any morning not just Christmas!)

Martin saw that Santa's deer had nibbled on the carrots- he decided to do the same thing. He ate all that was rest for breakfast!

Martin got this cute little scooter from Santa. He won't leave Cal's alone so we were glad Santa brought him one to play with. One less fight I need to worry about (LOL!)

Josh's other sister Rachel (who lives back East as well) did the most amazing thing for Christmas. She made both of the boys quilts. Aren't they beautiful? I was so excited because this is something they can cherish and use forever! They like to walk around the house with them and they also like to sleep with them. Aren't they beautiful!!!!

Here is Martin with his quilt and an apple that he got from his stocking. When I was cleaning up I found every single apple that was in every persons stocking covered in little tiny Martin bite marks.

Ah yes- here I am with my new board. I am also wearing my beautiful apron made by my sister-in-law Brittany Soucy . Isn't she amazing? I love this apron. I still haven't been able to go snowboarding yet because I have been sick and it is sad because I leave for Antartica next week for 3 weeks so I won't be able to go for another month. But I am excited to go with my next door neighbor Dayna. We want to take both of our boys! YIPPEE!!!!

Isn't he soooo cute? Spencer and Emily gave him this cute truck that makes noises. And no- you aren't supposed to ride it, but he thought he was very funny! Well my parents and brothers and sisters came to our house and we had breakfast and opened presents. We got a Wii and Guitar Hero, so needless to say a lot of the day was spent playing guitar hero. What a fabulous game that is!

Right after Christmas we had a little Christmas party with my cousins and Aunts and Uncles on my dad's side. Here is Martin with a bunch of his cousins. They all have such fun. He especially loves all of the older girls. He will just follow them around and they are so sweet to him.
Christmas is such fun. I love this time of the year. Even though I was so sick everything just seems happier and better and more fun during this time!

Well enough for today. I will try to update again before I leave for Antartica. Also, I should be able to update pictures of my journey as I go. We'll see!

Don't you just love holidays? So sad to see them go, but the good news is there is another holiday just around the corner!

Good night!

Halloween Night

2007-11-06T11:55:00.001-08:00

What a super fun (and very tiring) Halloween. This has to be one of my favorite times of the year. We began by going to Lisa Linton's house for soup and breadsticks. She had her house decorated so fun! When we came back to our house we loaded the kids in the wagon and began to trick or treat. Here is Calvin (dressed as black spiderman), Martin (as the pirate), and our new next door neighbor Ashton (who is also black spiderman, but wearing a venom mask). Before we left for South America Cal couldn't decide if he wanted to be black or red spiderman. We had to buy both because we were worried that they would be all out when we got home. Today he decided to be black spiderman.

Look at how cute these little spidey's are!

We met up with a bunch of people in the neighborhood trick or treating. Here is Crew and Titan. Crew is one of Cal's best friends and is in his same class at school. Titan is Crew's brother and is just one year younger. Look how cute they are!

Here are the boys in the wagon. We had been going for about 2 hours now. We were all tired and Martin was so sticky from candy!!!

We made it to Crew's house and took one last photo before heading to our home. Right before we got here we were able to pick up yummy dulce de leche hot chocolate (which is what they passed out to the parent's who were taking the kids out) and donuts from our friends house. Yummy!!! It sure hit the spot.

Well it was a fun Halloween. Here are some pictures of our house decorated. The fog machine was just turning on.

Now I get to begin decorating for Christmas!!!! Yeah!!!!

Halloween continued

2007-11-01T09:28:00.001-07:00

Before I can even begin to blog our fun Halloween night I thought I would finish posting about all of the other fun Halloween activities we were able to do. The cool thing about living in Utah is there are a million of fun things to do with your kids! Even though we missed most of October because of being in Peru, we were still able to do some fun stuff. I must say that we live in one of the best neighborhoods in the world! Everyone is amazing and so much fun. We have a very close neighborhood. Every year we throw all sorts of parties for the neighborhood. Jen (pictured above with me) always throws the neighborhood Halloween party at her house. It was so much fun!

Here is a picture of Hayden and Reese. They tease me everyday about scrapbooking. They are my really good buddies, but this was about as much of a picture I could get of them! (they don't want me scrapbooking any of them!)

Here is Sue with the kids playing games. They had all sorts of activities from playing games, frosting cookies, making crafts, coloring halloween bags, etc. It was fun. Me, Cal and Martin had just come from another Halloween party frosting cookies at Kirsten Wilcox's house (which I forgot my camera) so needless to say we brought home a lot of cookies that day!

They also had a room just for the little ones to play in (2 and under). Here is my friend Elizabeth playing with Martin. He had a blast playing with all the kids. I think there are about 8 different kids just in our neighborhood that is Martin's age. Cal has more like 10 his age. Lots of kids- it's fun!

Here is Cal working on his craft. He was making a skeleton.
The next day me, Libby, and Jen took all of our kids to the Hee Haw Farms. It was kind of silly place, but we had fun anyways. We went through the corn maze and found these really cool slides. The kids had a blast!

Cal also got to ride this little go-cart around. He really liked it.

After playing at Hee Haw farms we took the kids to Thanksgiving Point and got lunch. Then we went to the candy store and everyone got to pick out one candy. We had a good time! I love this time of year. From Halloween to Christmas- it is fabulous. Can't it be like this all year long? No of course not- because there wouldn't ever be a time to diet!!!!!!

I'll download our Halloween pictures soon and post them! Hope everyone had a fabulous time trick or treating (or whatever you did!)

Halloween Parties

2007-10-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!
So we have been doing one party after another! What a fun time! I love Halloween. Every year we have a traditional pumpkin carving party at our house. Here is some of the gang out in the garage decorating their pumpkins.
Look at how seriousy my two boys are! Can you tell who Calvin looks like?

And here is Martin- he is just happy to stick his hand in and get all goopy! He was having so much fun!

Belive it or not we got most of the kids together for a big picture of all their pumpkins. We just love our neighborhood! There are so many amazing kids in our neighborhood.

Then we had our ward trunk or treat. It was a blast. We decorated our trunk like a pirates treasure trunk. Josh did something so we could use our plugged in stuff. We had spider candle lights and a cauldron. And of course we had the skeleton flag. Martin and Cal had a blast. They got tons of candy. Cal was red spiderman for this party and maybe will be black spiderman for the next one. Do you like my neclace? Cal picked it out when we were in a tribal village in the Amazon Jungle. It is boar's teeth. And my earrings (they are covered with my hair) are Anaconda snake ribs. Who knew that I could get my Halloween costume accessories in the middle of the jungle!

We hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! I will post more pictures tomorrow of the rest of our Halloween parties as well as trick-or-treating tonight! YIPPEEEE!!!!

Central America- the Book of Mormon Lands

2007-10-27T10:00:00.001-07:00

In September Josh and I (we left the kids at my mom's house) went to Guatemala and Mexico City. We had a wonderful time. It was fascinating to learn more about the sites from the Book of Mormon. The areas we visited were so green and lush. It was beautiful. When Joseph Smith wrote about the Book of Mormon he wrote about many places in Central America he knew where ruins were that no one knew until John L. Stephens went down to investigate after the Book of Mormon was written. He wrote about rivers, mountains and many temples, etc. that were built. It all matches up. If anyone is interested- I have a few extra maps that I could send to you that places the Book of Mormon sites with the cities now in Guatemala, Mexico and Belize. Just let me know if you want one! It is fascinating!! We went to Mexico City first. Here we are at Teotihuacan. There are many different ruins, but the most famous are the Temple of the Moon and the Temple of the Sun. Here is the Temple of the Sun. Josh and I both climbed it. For those of you who don't know what the Book of Mormon is- it is a book translated by Joseph Smith in 1830's. They are records from people who left Israel in 600BC and traveled to America. It is about their life here in America. If you have questions- let me know!

Here is an Ulmec head. The Ulmecs were the first civilazation here in South America. For those of you who have read the Book of Mormon they are a candidate for the Jaredites. The Jaredites arrived exactly when the Ulmecs arrived (convenient don't you think?) These huge heads are all over certain places in Central America.

Here we are in Tikal. These are impressive ruins. At the top of this ruin is a very famous carving called the Tree of Life. There are two very famous Tree of Life scenes in Central America. One we nicknamed the "mormon" tree of life because it deals with Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life. This is in the Book of Mormon in 1st Nephi. It has Lehi, his wife Sariah, and his sons Nephi, Laman, Lemual, and Sam in the carving as well as the rod the tree etc. I don't have a picture of this yet, I can post it later. But this carving was of the Mayan Tree of Life. It has Quetzekatl (which is the white god and a feathered serpent) on the carving. Another fun thing is there are many symbols all over and one of them means "and it came to pass". This is fun because "and it came to pass" is all over in the Book of Mormon.

More ruins in Tikal. By the way- I am not trying to be preachy about the Mormon religion. I am just telling you what I learned while I was over there.

This is where the carving of the Mayan Tree of Life as well as the "and it came to pass" symbol was at the top of that temple. The picture didn't come out to well. I am going to try to find another one and I will post it later!

Again- Tikal. Isn't it beautiful. It was surrounded by a rainforest. Gorgeous!!!

When we got to Tikal we climbed up a temple and this was the view. Isn't is impressive? The ruins sticking out of the top of the jungle. We loved the jungle while we were here. We heard Howler Monkeys, saw tarantulas crawling around- but I can tell you we couldn't wait to get out of the humidity and heat!!!

It started raining when we got over to this ruin. We climbed all the others, but it was raining pretty hard so we didn't climb it because limstone turns to slimestone when it is wet!

Here we are getting absolutely drenched in the rain. It was a blast!!! We loved it!

After the ruins we went to go on the zip line over the jungle. There were 8 different zips. We were zipping past monkeys as well as toucan birds, etc. I let go of the rope and hung upside down. What a thrill. It was one of our best days on the tour visiting Tikal and doing the zip line!

We did quite a few different boat rides on our tour. Here we are going down the river to see some ruins. All the houses along the river looked like this.

Here are some young boys fishing.

These big carvings were in quite a few different places in Central America. It is quite impressive to look at because of the intricate carvings.

Can you believe how much she is carrying on her head? This is how everyone carries things in Central and South America. Crazy!!! Anyways- she had a bunch of really beautiful handmade things to sell. She is LDS and is in the Relief Society presidency and her brother-in-law was the Bishop. We thought how fun it was to meet her!

Well, all good things must come to an end. We had a great trip. I hope to be able to do it again!

An adventure in Peru

2007-10-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

So I know it has been many months since I have posted. I apologize but we have been gone so much over the last few months. I need to get caught up. However I thought I would begin with my first adventure and then I will post the other places we have been exploring.

We just got back on Monday from Peru and Bolivia. And boy was it an adventure. We began in Lima. We spent a few days touring and then flew to Cusco. This hit 11,000 feet and so we felt a little sick from the altitude. However the next day we took a train ride back down to 8,000 feet to Machu Picchu. This I highly recommend because then when you go back to Cusco you aren't as affected.

I must say that out of the many sites I have seen in my life Machu Picchu is up there in the top 10 sites to see!!! Here is me and Martin tramping around the site. This is also listed as one of the 7 wonders of the world and I understand why. We took a bus up to the top of the mountain and from there we hiked in. It was absolutely beautiful. There were alpacas and llamas running all over the place and they were very nice. Here are a few pictures of this amazing site!

Here we are at the top of one side of the mountain. There is a little tiny house up there called the guard house. This is such a fun place to hike to for pictures. I can't tell you how tired I was after today. I was carrying Calvin or Martin the entire time. I really need a massage!!!!

Cute little alpaca. They look like llamas but they have smaller noses. They are all over Peru!

When we got back to Cusco we went touring around. This lady had to sweet little lambs on her lap. She was very intrigued with blonde little Martin and of course he was very intrigued with the lamb. She let him hold one of the little lambs. He had a blast, although he screamed and yelled when I tried to pull him away! I told him to ask Santa Claus!

Cal was playing with these little girls in Cusco. Aren't there little outfits adorable.

I love having my kids with me when we travel. Not only because they are seeing the world, but also because the world seems to let us in more. Everywhere we went on this trip (as well as most other trips) they see my children and know that I am a mother just like them. We know the importance of motherhood and although we may be different in many ways- we are most important above all- mothers! Mothers from all over come over to talk to me or shake hands with me or even smile with me because we are mothers. Isn't this baby so cute?

By now we all had headaches and were pretty tired from the elevation. Martin sat down and didn't want to move. A few minutes later about 15 kids came over and kept touching him and trying to hold his hand. It took me about 20 minutes to get him to leave that position.
This was another highlight of the tour. We flew up even higher elevation to 13,000 feet to Lake Titicaca. I love it here! We took boats out on the lake to find these human made reed islands. The people build these islands out of reeds and then they live on them. I couldn't believe that people still live like this. All of the people in the town and on the islands dressed similar to these styles of clothing- although not always so brightly colored. They were so nice to our family. It was amazing to walk around on these islands. If anyone goes to Peru do not miss Titicaca.

Here is a picture of their houses on the reed island. When Calvin got on the island he asked where our house was. I told him that our house was very far away and that we needed to take a plane to get to our house. He asked me whose house was this? I pointed to the children nearby and told him it was there house. He then said- mommy their house is so small and our house is so big. I told him you are right. We are very lucky and I hope you never forget it!!!

Here is Martin with the kids. Everywhere we went on this tour everyone would follow him around, especially the kids. They loved his blond hair and blue eyes. But they would also follow Calvin around as well. I don't think they see many young kids from America in these areas.

So, we left the high altitude and the cold weather and headed into the Amazon. We flew into Iquitos a city in Peru. We then had to board a boat for 2 hours to get to our hotels. They were out in the middle of nowhere on the Amazon River. They were superb! I loved it. Here is a picture of how the local people live on the amazon. However, not all of their houses are as nice as these ones. There is a lot of poverty in this part of the world

We stayed in these fun bungalo's. We would do hikes through the jungle during the day. We saw monkeys, tarantula's and all sorts of huge insects!!!! It was beautiful to walk through!

Calvin was in heaven with all these bugs. Check out this millipede! Disgusting! But I did hold it.

There were some cute animals in the jungle. The monkeys were really cute and this little baby Tapir was darling! Cal loved him. He just hung out where the different little bungalo's were. We would see him, these miniature deer, macaw's and some other animals. The place we were staying had banana's hanging all over the place. You could just pick them and eat them. Cal loved to feed the little tapir banana's. He really liked Cal.

We also got to go fishing for paranna on the Amazon. Both Josh and Cal went fishing. Unfortunately they didn't catch anything but they were certainly biting. They kept stealing the little pieces of steak we put on there for them. Hungry little suckers. I was very careful not to fall in!

Here is Josh fishing. They just use sticks for poles. And the hooks weren't that good. I would have to do that every day for food for my family. How am I so lucky?

Isn't he funny? This is a baby sloth. He belonged to a little boy from a tribal village we went to. He moved so slow it was really quite comical. He was hanging onto me pretty hard

We took a boat ride about 45 minutes from where our hotel was and then walked about a mile from shore into the jungle to visit this tribal village. Aren't they beautiful children. Some of the women were topless or they barely covered themselves with the straw hanging down. The kids were so sweet to Martin. They all played with him the entire time we were there. He loved them and was sad to finally say good-bye.

These men are the tribal chiefs. They still use blowdarts for hunting. Josh and I were able to try out the blowdart. They put up a piece of wood and we each took a shot blowing out the dart. I got it on my first try and Josh got it on his second. What a difficult way to hunt.

This made me so sick. Do you see the black thing she is holding? That is a huge ant. Well the kids were playing with these when suddenly she twisted off the back part of the ant and popped it into her mouth. The other kids did the same. Sick!

Here is Josh with the kids.

All in all this was a wonderful adventure. I feel so blessed to have been able to visit such a beautiful and amazing place. Peru is incredible. I hope to be able to go back again and visit. It is a great reminder for me as well to know how blessed I am to have a home, running water, food in my fridge and the too many countless blessings above and beyond my needs. We are so lucky to live here in America!

Dinosaur Days

2007-07-30T16:19:00.001-07:00

One thing I love about Utah are all the many fun family activity places to visit. We have season passes to the Hogle Zoo, the Aquarium, Thanksgiving Point (which has a farm with animals they can pet, amazing gardens to play in including a childrens garden area, and of course the Dinosaur museum. Calvin wants to go there at least once a week. So, let's just say it was a great investment. The only problem is he wants us to buy him a dinosaur before he leaves. So basically I always leave with him kicking and screaming. But it still is worth it for the couple hours leading up to that point!

Here are Cal and Martin playing with the dinosaurs. They have tons of hands on stuff for kids. This area is filled with books and toys for them to play with.

Look how cute. You can put these on and wear them through the museum. Cal rarely wants to wear his- mainly because there isn't a t-rex one and Martin usually ends up tripping on his face if he wears it too long. So he only wears it at the beginning.
And of course in Utah there are fireworks every single weekend in the month of July. There are fireworks on the fourth, fireworks on the 24th for Pioneer Day when the pioneers made it to the Utah Valley. And each city has its own fireworks and celebration. Here we are at Draper Days. We went with Jayla and Cody Campbell. Which by the way they have a new product called Oh Snap Bands. They are really cool bracelets. They have just started and have one called Stand United right now. More are on the way. Check out their website and everyone should get one. If you know any young people pass it on. We are so excited for them. Anyways- I can't wait for the skulls and flames!!! Anyways we had a lot of fun at Draper Days. They had wicked good fireworks and we ate lots of junk!

Look at how sweet my boy is. He normally goes to bed at 6:30. This picture was taken around 9:30pm. He was still awake and still happy. I just love him!!!

We also had a fun night on Saturday this week. Christy & Ben Tomlinson and their six kids came and stayed at our house. We had a blast. Here is a quick photo of some of their kids and my two early in the morning watching Disney Channel. They have such a fun family! Calvin keeps asking where they are and when they are coming back. He really enjoyed having so many kids around!

Well, that's about it. I will post more soon, because I have some pics of Rebecca's b-day. What a fabulous week!

Camping at Downata

2007-07-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

What a fun weekend we just had. We just went to Downata Hot Springs in Downey Idaho. If you are wondering how to say that it is down at a hot springs. Pretty clever huh? Me, Josh and the boys finally went camping. Can you believe it? We haven't been in four years partly because we have had little ones (which is really hard to camp with) and the fact that I really love beds!!! We went with our friends Ben & Christy Tomlinson and their 6 kids. Can you believe she has had 6 kids?!! I can't. Here is me and Christy. She is such an awesome woman and a mother. I really look up to her!

Here is Cal with 3 of her boys. They are so cute. Cal had a blast hanging out with so many kids. So did Martin. He was the baby of the group so it was everyone's job to make sure he didn't fall into the fire.

Here is Martin at breakfast. It is his goal to stick whatever I give to him in his mouth in one shot. If I give him 3 crackers all 3 go into his mouth. If I give him a whole pancake the entire pancake goes into his mouth! As you can see below.

At Downata they have different places you can stay in. We rented a teepee. This was really fun, the only problem was no air conditioning. It got pretty hot during the day. We have learned that next time we need to get a yurt or a cabin that has air conditioning. Or we need to go during a different time except for July. Cal and Martin loved the teepee. It was great, except for the middle of the night when Cal wouldn't go to sleep because he wanted his own bed.

Right next to the teepee was a fence and lots of horses. We fed the horses apples. They were very nice. Martin would hang out near the fence and watch the horses.

All in all it was a great outing. Although I still think that we need to wait at least 1 more year for Martin to really be old enough to go camping. It was fun. Can't wait for our next adventure. It is nice to have an adventure in the states for a change!

The Barbecue

2007-07-09T09:08:00.001-07:00

We just had a bunch of our neighbors come over for a really fun barbecue. We had 12 adults and 12 kids. It was perfect!! Everyone brought yummy food and we hung outside and played. We had barbecued skewers, strawberry salad, pasta salad, Brazilian lemonaide (which is my new favorite drink!- I'l post the recipe later), ribs and many other yummy foods. Here is Kevin fixing the skewers! Titan and Martin just love each other. They both get excited to hang out. Titan was nice to share his drink with Martin.

All the kids brought their food into the clubhouse and packed themselves in there.

Brandon, Josh, and Kevin and the other guys finally made it outside when the sun began to set and it started to cool down!

Josh brought out a bunch of sparklers and the kids had a lot of un. They especially loved the giant sparklers!! Ryan, Crew, and Titan are playing with sparklers

Here is the marshmellow lady- Jen. Josh got a fire going and we made smores for desert!

Here is Andrew and his son Ethan. Don't you just love his red hair?

Here's everyone making smores!

Here are the girls- Jen, me, Sue, Lisa, Monica, and Marci. They are such a fun group to hang out with!! And it is great having kids near the same ages!

The entire time of the barbecue Calvin was searching for slugs (YUCK!!!) Here he is with a baby slug on his thumb in between Bella and Crew.

After the barbecue we went in the front yard and lit a few fireworks out on the street. The kids were very excited!

I can't wait to have another barbecue!! Now it really feels like summer!

July 4th

2007-07-09T08:10:00.001-07:00

After spending the day in Park City we headed to Thanksgiving Point to watch the fireworks. We met up with the Delgrosso's and headed down. Spencer and Emily also met us down there. Martin loves her little boy Jackson. Here they are looking at something in the grill. We also did sparklers with all of the boys.

Here is Monica and Brandon with their boys. They are such a fun family to hang out with.

Here is Spencer and Emily with the boys. We put them in their pj's because we knew they would be sooooo tired. Which of course Calvin did have a melt down when the fireworks ended and we had to go home!

The fireworks lasted for about 1/2 an hour. We kept waiting for them to end. Martin was very tired and also very hyper. He crawled all over Spencer the entire night. He was pretty funny! It was a superb day and night. I love the month of July. We celebrate the founding of our country as well as the pioneers reaching Salt Lake City and founding Utah. I am so glad to be an American!!!

Park City Fun

2007-07-08T14:41:00.000-07:00

For July 3rd we all went up to my cousins house in Park City. We had a great time. This is me and Wendy. I am so glad that she moved here because she is so much fun to be with and she has an amazing and fun family!! She also has a little boy Eli who is Cal's same age. They had a fun firework show. We had a great barbecue over at their house so we got to the fireworks late. We decided to just hang out in the parking lot and watch them. It worked out great because we were right near the fireworks and we didn't have to wait long to get out of the parking lot!

Calvin and Martin both loved the fireworks they had a blast. However it was really loud for Calvin's ears. We had to hold the blankets up around his ears and then he was happy!

The next morning we all met at Wendy's again. My parents came as well as Spencer and Emily. We had a really fun day. Here is Martin getting ready to eat.

Wendy's mom (my Aunt Cheri) brought over some fabulous purses that we all bought. It was fun doing some shopping for purses right at home!

This is a fun activity for families. We went to the Alpine Slide area and visited the chocolate factory. We got some caramel apples. The one to get is apple pie. It is really delicious!!!

Park City has a new ride that opened last year. It is called the Alpine Coaster. It is a lot of fun! I would say it is one of the most fun rides I have ever done! We loved it. Calvin rode with me and he wanted to go very fast. The only problem is it is really expensive. For one ride it is $17. But it is actually worth it. However for only $5 more you can also do the alpine slide. So, if you are up for a spendy night this is a lot of fun!

Here is Josh going down. It was really fun!

Here is all of us after doing the Alpine Coaster.

Of course we hit the Alpine Slide as well.We drove home very tired from the busy days we had just had. It was a really fun day. I think we might have to go to Park City again next year for the 3rd and the 4th of July.

Ode to Heather

2007-06-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

Heather has been our nanny for over a year. Yesterday was her last day. Of course she will always be part of the family and is always welcome to be here, but we will miss seeing her every day. She is an amazing woman and has been an enourmous help. We will miss her terribly! I just wanted to say thank you to Heather. I am so happy that I am finally going to be a stay at home mom- but I am very sad to say good-bye. Thank you! Here are some of our favorite moments with Heather.

Heather & Calvin at Cal's b-day party.Heather and Calvin.Almost too close for comfort! Heather and Cal. Heather and Martin

Heather & Martin in Egypt near the Sphynx and the Giza pyramids

Heather and Martin in Israel

Heather and Martin in Martin's room at home.

Heather and Martin at the dinosaur museum

Cal & Heather practicing their swimming lessons.

Heather, Amber, and Martin at the colloseum in Rome.

Heather and Calvin doing their typical camera poses.

Safari Party

2007-06-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Calvin turned 4 years old in May, however since I was in Egypt, we decided to throw him a party on Tuesday. It was a blast! At first everyone came to the door and we had passport control. Heather and Lindsay were at the door and they gave each child their passport (& stamped it with an elephant stamp), safari hat, binoculars, malaria pills (smarties), and a neclace and bracelet from South Africa that the Zulu tribe made. Here is Lindsay at passport control.Then each child got their picture taken. These were put into the passports near the end. Here is Martin for his passport. Every thing the kids did for the party got them a different animal stamp in their passport. My friend Megan Wilcox made an amazing snake cake. Isn't this too cute? It was perfect for Calvin and all his friends!

We played a bunch of games in the backyard. We all got different animals and then they pretended to be those animals. We also played animal bingo. We continued playing until everyone won. They all got wooden carved animals from South Africa. Then the highlight of the party. Reptile Rescue came. They brought a bunch of lizards, snakes, turtles, etc. It was awesome!

Here is Me, Martin, and Heather petting a komodo dragon.

This is my mom holding a snake for Calvin to pet.

Here is me, Calvin and one of his really good buddies Crew holding an albino Bull snake.

This is me and Calvin with an albino python. I had to hold the head for most everyone and then I would wrap the tail around the kids or adults.

Here we are with a ball snake.We then went inside and opened presents, then blew out the candles for Cal's cake. It was really yummy! The last thing we did was under our deck were a bunch of bags hanging that were made to look like coconuts. We had the kids go down and we had a coconut drop. It was really fun. Inside the bag were little snakes, a big wooden snake, squishy frogs, and all sorts of candy that dealt with bugs, snakes, etc. It was fun!

Here is my little explorer (this was his passport photo). I was so proud of him. He was one of the few kids who touched or held every reptile that was brought out. What a fun day. How will I top this birthday for next year?!? Any ideas?

Me & Jen's B-Day

2007-06-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Me & Jen Gale (my friend & neighbor) both had a b-day on Monday. We got together with all our amazing girlfriends and had a fun girls night out! We went downtown to the Gateway and ate dinner at the DODO. We had yummy dinners and even blew out candles. We also got picked up a couple of times by guys. What a great laugh we had!

The picture below shows everyone-(starting from the left) Shannon, Rebecca, me, Sue, Monica, Hailey, Libby, Jen, Marci, Jen, and Lisa. What a fun crew! Everyone lives in my neighborhood (all within about 2 miles from my house) except Rebecca who is Josh's sister. But of course she had to come because it was my birthday and she knows most of the girls anyways! I love where we live! Such fun and amazing women.

On Sunday night (the night before) Josh put together a barbecue with my family and a few friends. It was a lot of fun. We had yummy chicken & steak skewers with a great salad that Rebecca made, grilled pineapple and of course Josh's chocolate cake. It was a really fun night.

Calvin dressed up just for me in his Batman outfit!
My good friend from Korea (who is now a United States citizen) Mikyung came with her little girl Haylie. Martin just loves her!!

All in all it has been a great couple of days! Thanks for everyone who helped me celebrate and thank you for all the happy birthday emails and phone calls! Love to you all!!!

TeePee

2007-06-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

I was really glad that the toilet paper roll had only 1/3 left, or there would have really been a mess. Thanks Martin- Calvin and I really enjoyed the laugh!

Spiderman vs. Batman

2007-06-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

The imaginations of children are amazing. I love everything that Calvin says to me. I am also excited because he loves to play with his brother Martin. He tells me that he is glad that he finally plays. I am glad too. I think their favorite game is for Calvin to run (with or without capes) and Martin chases him. This brings a lot of laughter (& lots of Martin squeals) to our home.

Here is the latest Calvinism.

(in a funny voice Calvin says) "This walk is very long. I don't want to walk anymore."

(then in a regular voice Calvin says) "Hey did you hear what my legs just told you?"

This to me is a perfect example of Calvin. Boy do I love that kid!

New England Vacation

2007-06-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

Last week me, Josh, and the boys all went to New England to visit all of Joshua's family. It was awesome! We had a great time. It started out right with a great meal (of course!) We had our own stir fry night. This was a lot of fun. We all put what we wanted on our plates and Jake (Josh's brother) was kind enough to cook it for us. He didn't even burn mine which I am sure was a huge step for him. It was delicious. Here is a picture of Jessica and Jake cooking away!

Here is a picture of Roger & Kyle. They are getting married September 15th. I feel very blessed to have gotten to know her. She is an amazing and strong women. I am very excited to have her as a sister and look forward to many more fun talks with her!

The whole reason we went out back East was for my beautiful niece's baptism. Her name is Anna. Here is a picture of her and her dad Jake before the baptism. It was such a beautiful ceremony.

Here is Grampy with our boys. They sure love him. We have been thinking of calling Martin "Mahty" from Grampy's cute accent. I love to hear him talk. The kids had so much fun with all their grandparents. They also had a ton of fun with their cousins. They have three cousins. Anna, Isaac, and Abby. The only problem is they all live in New Hampshire. So we don't get to see them very often. Here is all the cute kids together in front of the church at the baptism. Cal misses his cousins so much. He asks to go see them every day that we have been home.

Calvin is of course crying in the picture because he dropped his inch worm. But that isn't unusual because most pictures of him and the cousins he is crying because of some reason. What cuties!!

We loved the hammock in Jake & Britt's backyard. Perfect to hang out in! Both boys loved their big yard!

While we were back East we stayed at Grammy's house. Everyday Calvin asked her if they could make cookies. I think they made cookies and muffins a couple of times while we were there. He loves to cook just like the rest of the Soucy family. I am very glad too because it didn't come from my side of the family! This was fun for him and grammy to hang out together!

Here are the cousins watching tv together. I just couldn't belive how old they are all getting. What big kids they are now!

Here is me and the boys at the beach. We had such a fun day with Grampy and Nana. We went to the beach and then we went and fed all the farm animals. Calvin even fed a goat by himself. I was a very proud mommy!

Here is Nana and Martin, or as I call her my good friend Louise!

Nana & Grampy live in amazing house that was built in the 1850's. Come to think of it almost everyone in the family lives in a house that was built in the early 1800's. They are beautiful homes to visit and the yards are huge. They all back up to thick forests which can be a lot of fun for an exploring boy. This tree swing hangs from a huge tree. It is such a fun place to run around. Grampy has a tractor and the kids loved it especially Marty. He would cry every time he was taken off it. Nana (or Nancy) also creates pottery. Her website is www.impswichpottery.com I love all her stuff. I have it all over my house!

We visited one more beach before going home. The day before we flew home we drove a couple minutes to Hampton Beach. It was chilly but nice. Cal and Martin ran all over the beach and had a lot of fun. We were very sad to go home! I am glad that Roger and Kyle are getting married in September because it gives us another reason to go back and visit this year!

When we were done with the beach we went back to grammy's house. She played the piano with the boys as well as I ballroom danced with the boys all around the room. We had a lot of fun. The boys love music and dancing.

All in all it was probably one of my favorite times going back East. I really miss our family and can't wait to go back to see them!

Egypt & Israel

2007-06-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am with my first post in my new blog. I am very excited to try this out. I just recently have been trying out my first stuff with digital scrapbooking and Adobe (hence my pathetic and very busy title up above). I finally gave up after hours of switching things around. This was my first time using Photoshop. I know... it will be changed as soon as I have a few more hours!

I have had a couple of people ask me to post a couple of pics from my last trips so I'll begin with that. In May me and Martin (my little sweetie) spent 3 weeks in Egypt, Jordan and Israel. It was fabulous!!! We also took Heather along for the ride (our wonderful nanny!) I love Egypt. Of course while we were in Cairo we had to see the Pyramids and the Sphynx. I love standing next to these amazing objects.
We also spent the day in Luxor. This is probably my favorite place in Egypt. If anyone goes to Egypt they must go to Luxor. It seems that every direction you look at all times there is something amazing and ancient that was built there. And the hieroglyphics are beautiful and some are brightly colored, despite the age and the elements. The most fun part of the day in Luxor was the fact that our plane broke down and we didn't get back to Cairo until 4:00am. (yeah!) But we survived and still toured Cairo the next day. Even though we were half asleep!!! I always love going to Egypt. I love to read books and if anyone wants a book suggestion to read about the Pharoahs of Egypt and what the carvings mean I would recommend reading "Book of the Dead" by E.A. Wallas Budge as well as a fun book to read is "Who Killed King Tut" by Michael King and a few other authors. He might actually begin doing tours for our company. He is very knowledgable about Egypt.

And then we went to Israel. I love Israel because so many events have taken place in this area. I also love the spiritual feeling I have here! Also I love visiting my good friends in Israel. My Jewish Uncle (who has adopted me into his family) Jospeh Ginat is an amazing man who is a huge inspiration in my life. I always appreciate visiting him. He calls Martin his grandson. It is great because Martin has grandparents in Utah, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Israel. What a lucky kid!
Here is a picture of Martin and Heather in the Dead Sea. He didn't want to be in it. He thought it was too cold. There is also a picture me, Lindsay & Heather at the aqueducts from Ceserea and then here is me and Martin in the Garden of Gethsemane. I can't even describe the feelings that I have in such a place as the Garden of Gethsemane or the Garden Tomb. I walked around the Garden of Gethsemane holding my beautiful sleeping boy and I was filled with many emotions. I can not imagine the sacrifice that was done here for me and for my son. I am so grateful that I can be with my family forever! I am also incredibly grateful for my two little boys.

Here is the Western Wall (or the Wailing Wall as many people call it. We had another guide named Joseph who took Martin up to touch the wall. It is seperated by Men on one side and women on the other. We came here twice. Once when they were doing Bar Mitzvah's and the then we came Friday night to watch them welcome in the Sabbath. I loved to see their singing and dancing and their devotion towards their religion and God. It is difficult to find people who are devoted towards God these days. It seems most people find that they are devoted to mankind or to themselves. What a sad world this has become. People have lost faith and don't believe in miracles of God. They also repress the feelings that God is so wanting to share with his children. Anyways- sorry about my spiritual side coming out. I normally don't talk about that, especially on a blog, but the reason for this tour was to learn more about Jesus and God.

To continue.... One of the highlights of my tour was going to Beit Lehi (or Lehi's Cave). If anyone has read the Book of Mormon then they will know who Lehi is. Because he is in the beginning of the Book of Mormon. Anways this could possible be his cave. In Israel the place is called the Valley of Laman (which is one of Lehi's sons). The Muslims believe that the prophet Lehi taught here about 600 BC. Which happens to be when the Book of Mormon begins with Lehi. (pretty interesting heh??) So, they have been doing excavating here. Dr. Glen Kimber has been heading this up. We are lucky because he is such a good friend to our family. We are the only tour group he allows to go there. By the way I also had some great educators with us as well. Dr. S. Michael Wilcox and Dr. John Lund came with me. So, Glen said that me, John, and Michael could leave the group and go through a tunnel as Elder Hartman Rector was taking the group around to see the excavations. We found this little hole, grabbed flashlights and scooted on our stomachs for about 100 yards. It was exhilerating! It was a tight fit, but we all made it and it was well worth it. It opened up to these huge caverns filled with these little triangles. Inside each of these holes they used to keep doves. There were hundreds of these holes. They would sell the doves to those people going to the temple. They would then sacrifice them. I couldn't get very many pictures down there because it was so dark. But it was a lot of fun. I can't wait until they begin excavating it.

Another fun thing that happened while I was there is that the tomb of Harod the Great was discovered. The picture of me and the man with the turban is the person who discovered the tomb. He is very famous. He has even worked with the Pope on some discoveries. Right now he is dedicating his time with Beit Lehi. It is a very exciting excavation site. We also went up to the Dome of the Rock. Martin ran around the entire time. The entire tour everyone wanted to hold him, kiss him, and take pictures of him. I think his face is on over 100 cell phones. All the locals loved him!!! And also the people on the group loved him as well. We had 90 people in the tour. And let's just say that about half of them became his grandparents as well. He was so loved by everyone it was great!

But I must tell you I missed Calvin very very much!!! I don't know that I can ever leave him for that long again!
Here is a picture of me where "supposedly" Jesus was born in Bethleham. Sad isn't it? He was born in a cave (manger) with animals and now this place is covered in jewels and gold. Not quite the same feeling!

Next stop Jordan- Petra. What a great way to end the trip!! If anyone has seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom this is the huge stone carving that they go into at the end. And it is impressive!!! We began by riding on a horse. Martin was strapped onto my back. Then you go down this narrow passageway. At the very end suddenly you see it. It is huge. I have a picture somewhere of me and Martin and Heather riding camels around it, but Lindsay has the pictures. I'll post it later. Anyways the entire area is just hundreds of carvings. There are amphitheatres, houses, temples, churches all built out of stone. It was quite warm so we only walked around for a few hours. Then I rode the

horses back with Martin passed out on my back. Well, that night we flew to Cairo and the next day we flew home. We got in around midnight and there was my boy Calvin waiting for me. I was so excited to see him. I got a huge hug and also a beautiful flower that he had picked for me. Josh was very excited to see Martin.

Well, that's it for that trip. I just got back from Boston visiting my in-laws. I'll blog that hopefully tomorrow!

If anyone wants to go to Egypt, Israel, or Petra- give me a call!