Selamat Hari Merdeka

August 31st is Malaysia's Independence day so we are celebrating it with a 3-day weekend. Actually we aren't really celebrating much (we're leaving that up to the locals), but are just trying to stay home to avoid the crowds! However, since it was on a Sunday this year, we did get out to church and had lunch afterwards, and I was surprised at how "little" traffic there was returning home. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be! Tomorrow is also a public holiday...I guess since the 31st was on a Sunday, they needed to have one working day off! This holiday is one of the few that we, as a school, are required by the Malaysian government to take off, so hence the 3-day weekend for us. We have been enjoying it for sure.

It was kind of a quiet week overall other than KD was sick and stayed home on Friday...after KR had been sick on Monday. So far three of the five kids have been sick the past couple of weeks...I just hope the other two manage to stay healthy. We also have an extra kid for a few days since the senior class took their sneak this weekend and we are keeping one of our friend's boys. He's a great kid and it really doesn't add much to the work load to have him here. We are just very happy to help them out (they helped us out last year when we went on sneak with our seniors) and we hope they are having a fabulous time bonding and such :-)

Earlier in the week Greg and I had the pleasure of visiting with a former student (one that was in our sponsor class of 2004). She has been working with YWAM for the past three years in England and was in this area of the world on one of the outreaches they do. Her parents (who have been living back in Canada) are currently here for a six month period with the same organization. So she stopped in to spend some time with them and dropped by the school to see us. We ended up being able to have supper with her a couple of nights before she left and got a picture. We had a very nice visit and it was fun to catch up with what's been happening in her life these past four years. We all look kind of scruffy in the photo, but guess that is pretty normal at the end of a long day!

My nephew, Reece, also had his first birthday this past week. My sister said they celebrated on the weekend before with cake and presents. I just had to share this picture of him she sent that I thought was SO cute.
Can't think of much else to talk about so will end this for now. Hope everyone is having a great Labor Day weekend!!

Two years ago today...

...KJ and I finally arrived home. The kids and daddy were so anxious to meet their little sister/daughter after such a long wait. We all had been waiting almost two years for her arrival and the day was FINALLY here!

There were SO many times during that wait that it seemed like she would never be with us and now she's been here two years already! Wow, how much more quickly the time has gone on this end of the wait then on the other. In the everydayness of life it's easy to take for granted having her here, but today I am once again reminded of all the miracles it took in the process to get her home with us. It also serves as a time of reflection on where she might be if she were not here with us. Although we will never know for sure, we do know she was in pretty dire straights when she came into the orphanage, so we are pretty safe to assume that if it weren't for the people who lovingly took her into the orphanage, and our family (and families like ours) who was willing to bring her into our family as one of our own, she may not be on this earth today. We are so blessed to have her as part of our family (just as we are blessed to have all of our kids as "ours"). She has grown so much these past two years, in so many ways. I am excited to see what the next year brings.

My prayer is that she continues to grow, God will equip both Greg and I to be the parents she needs us to be in the years to come. No doubt there will be difficulties in some areas through the years, but by His grace we will get through them. Here are a few photos to remind us of how far she has come.

Leaving the US to fly home.
First photo of all the kids together. Our first family photo.
Celebrating tonight with cake and candles. KJ thought it was great to have her own special day. Look how much she's grown and changed.
Our wonderful Kids:-)

New Look...to be continued

I have spent several hours today trying to give the blog a facelift...but it's not turning out like it's supposed to! I was hoping that it would be easy and I could surprise everyone with the new look...but I guess you will have to bear with me for a few days until I can get back to it as I'm sure I won't have much time during the week to figure out what I am doing wrong...I think I need a "Blog for Dummies" book to consult! LOL!

KR is sick today so we (the girls and I) missed church. It's looking doubtful she will be well enough to go to school tomorrow unless miracles happen overnight. KL was sick last Monday and missed school. What is it about the first of the school year and my kids getting sick? It happens almost every year that someone becomes ill right around when school starts. I hate to see them miss school so early on. Sigh....

More summer pics...

So July was a lot busier month for us. We left on the 2nd to travel to MN to spend a few days with Greg's brother and his family. Our niece, Amy, was the only cousin KJ had not met last summer so they were excited to be meeting for the first time (at least Amy was...KJ is a bit young to care too much). We left very early in the a.m. and arrived at their house around 11:30 p.m. local time. It was a VERY long day, but with our new van the trip wasn't bad at all! I got to drive it for the first time at length and I adjusted quickly :-) It was nice having cruise control that works again! lol! While in MN Greg and his brother got a chance to go golfing, we went to a fun park for the kids to play, went to Valley Fair, and attended a Twins game, as well as just spent time visiting and catching up. It was a nice few days with them and we are thankful we had the opportunity to see them, even if it was too short. It seems there is never enough time for KR and her cousin, Heidi, to spend together...we keep thinking about how we can remedy that some summer.

The kids had a blast having slip-n-slide races in the front yard.
KJ, on the other hand did NOT think it was fun at all so she sat on the step and pouted.
Here she is with her Uncle Tim at Valley Fair. I should have cropped out the guy in the background out...oh well. I really didn't get many other good pictures that day. Sorry.

KR and Heidi enjoying the twins game...or at least the food!

Amy, Heidi, Aunt Leslie and the girls on our last morning there.

After we left MN we drove to my mom's house in SD. The plan was to visit with her and my sister (and her family) f0r a few days while Greg put a new roof on my mom's house. It had suffered hail damage from the year before and had been leaking so it desperately needed done before there was even more damage to repair. I neglected to get any photos of Greg fixing the roof or the finished product, but suffice it to say he did a good job and the roof looked great when he was done. And even better, my mom reported no more leaks the next time it rained hard. Yay!

Here is my mom and my sis's little guy, Reece, snoozing away together. Too cute.

I guess he had a hard time staying awake because here he fell asleep in the middle of his meal..and KJ thought she had to get in the picture too! Yes, it was "hair day" that day.

Here he is showing off his two new teeth...so cute:-) I got to spend a lot of time with him so I really missed him the first few days after our visit was over.

My sister and her husband have spent more than a year redoing their house after it suffered from tornado strength winds in the spring of 2007. They just moved back in a few days before we came, even though it's not totally complete yet. Here is one of the views. It's much nicer than it used to be and I know my sis is enjoying it immensely.

I just had to share these pics of her little guy's room. I think she did a fantastic job on the decorating...it's SO cute.

KR and her my Sis's daughter, Keegan.

Once our time in SD was finished we all packed up and headed to WY to spend a few days with my brothers. They both live within an hour drive of each other so that's nice.

My Mom and her two littlest grandsons. They were born just over a month apart.

KR is the oldest of this trio, with my sister's daughter(middle) being the youngest. She had just turned 6 in May while KR will be 8 next month and Jessica (my younger brother's daughter) just turned 7 earlier in August. As you can see Keegan is very tall for her age...and Jessica is probably petite! The three girls played very well together this year. It's nice they are getting more mature and are able to do so well together now. There are a lot less hurt feelings that way.

On the weekend we were in Hulett there was an airshow at the dinky airport. Here are the kids and my grandma waiting for the action to begin. It was a pretty warm day so finding shade was important.There was a Jelly Belly plane at the show, which was kind of funny.

They handed out jelly beans to the kids and here is my nephew, Rilee, sharing with KJ. He would take a bite of half of it and then give her the other half. She seemed to be okay with that! LOL!

Here are Greg and KJ leaving the airshow. It was surprisingly green there for July so I had to take a picture of the scenery.

Well, I was hoping to get through all my pictures and news this post, but so far I am over two hours into this process and I just don't have time to do more. I hope to finish it up soon! In the meantime, thanks for checking and have a great day!

Finally summer pics....June

Click on the pictures to make them bigger...
KL goofing around in the Tokyo aiport.
KR following suit... They both thought this was so funny.
The house on the left in the picture is Greg's parents. It is where we stay the most while we are in the U.S. The greenish van is our old one...that we have now given to my mom. It was trustworthy for us and I hope she is able to get some good out of it. Notice the snow-covered mountains in the background...they were so beautiful.

It was SO cold the first week we were back. The snow level was very low and several mornings we woke up to new snow on the hills and mountains. The building on the left is Yellowstone Regional airport...it's just huge, isn't it! LOL!
From the same road, just different view
...from farther away...

The boys fishing with their friends. We bought the boys fishing licenses this year and they made pretty good use of them.

Look at the size of this baby!! LOL!
KR with her friend (sister of the boys who are fishing with my boys) who is only two days older than her. They really do have a great time playing together. Unfortunately we were not able to spend as much time with this family as we usually do. Our schedules just didn't mesh very well this year. Hopefully next summer will be better.

KJ and KL riding a horse. KJ LOVES horses and is not scared of them at all. I wish she had just a little more fear of them...

KB celebrating his 15th birthday. Obviously I didn't have enough candles on here!

Overall June was a pretty quiet month for us. We did quite a bit more in July. I will post about that, and the pictures next time :-)

First Day of School

On Tuesday school started for us. I find it hard to believe that summer is "over" and we have started another school year. KJ and KR were pretty excited about the day, but the boys would have loved a few more days/weeks of vacation to hang out with their friends and enjoy the "good" life. They know once school starts, homework will take over. I can't say I blame them for not looking forward to that...as a mom of five I'm not looking forward to it either!

KJ did better this year with the traditional "first day" picture we take. Last year she would do nothing but pout and cry. This year she actually had a smiley face on. And it didn't RAIN this year! I was happy about that!

I had a TERRIBLE time getting the pictures to load so consequently some of them are not in the order I originally intended them to be. If I move them around they will not longer be "clickable" so I have decided to leave them in the order they are currently even though they are not chronologically correct! I hope you don't mind.

Locks of Love...

...this has been something KR has been thinking about doing for a few months. She finally decided she was ready do go through with it so my good friend, Jacki, helped with the cut... She and I both love her new "do".... She keeps looking at herself in the mirror and saying "I love to look at myself in the mirror now...I love my new hairdo!" So cute :-)

Other summer pictures still to come... :-)