Volleyball and campfire

A couple Friday's ago, we invited a couple families over to play volleyball

and cook hotdogs over the open fire.
We won't always make our guests cook their own food.
A volleyball game and more yard to spare.
It cooled down as the evening progressed.
Laughter with friends. A good evening.

Pretending choking

Justin pretending to be Joseph.

Day at the zoo

When Abbey went to MI to work with Resounding Voice, Wendy and Dee took Justin and Isabel to the Brookfield Zoo. It was a good day with the kids. We've got to get better at arranging the pictures and getting them in order, this isn't the picture that we wanted on top, but here it is.

There were even cars on display at the zoo for Justin. For your information the car on the left is a Pontiac Solstice the one on the right is a Pontiac G-6, Justin knew them both as we walked up to them.
Probably the most fun thing they did was washing their hands in a pint-sized sink, complete with water faucet and soap dispenser.
Isabel and Justin thought the goats were great fun and enjoyed brushing them.
At the park.

Their first look at some real zoo animals.

Isabel & Justin were very cute and quite amazed.

A couple cute little joeys.

On the merry-go-round.

"Mike Muligan", always a good read.

Happy Mother's Day

MaMa and Justin

Wendy, Dee's Granny and Justin on Granny's front porch.

MaMa and PaPa at Christmas time, 2006.
Abbey and MaMa .

Happy Mother's Day MaMa, we love you and miss you.

Hope your day was wonderful.

Dee's Granny with Justin.

Dee, Justin and the girls plan on seeing Granny this June.
Happy Mother's Day Granny, we love you and miss you.

Visiting the Beatty house.

We went to tour the Beatty house and grounds with MaMa and PaPa. The original owner of the plantation was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The house was almost in it's origianl state. Very interesting and beautiful and for some reason it was not burned during the War between the States. A Judge Beatty now owns it. They had many historical items in the furnishings, old books to admire and a "secession ribbon" that Abbey was able to study. The house also has an original signed baseball by Jackie Robinson. Even through PaPa is a BIG history buff, he could hardly get his mind of the baseball. (He is a really BIG baseball fan also.)
Side view; the house and grounds sit right on a river. The grounds, trees and Spanish Moss are gorgeous.

SC visit

PaPa and Justin watching baseball. Somehow my dad flipped channels to check some other sport, but Justin saw the car racing and would have nothing but the racing after he saw it.
At MaMa and PaPa's church.
Justin walking with PaPa and MaMa. Justin and PaPa had to go check out all the cars as we walked through the parking lot at the restaurant.

Traveling to SC

Stopping at the Chalet Suzanne in FL., we had met the Farewell family formally of "Lifetime Books and Gifts" through homeschool acquaintences. The Farewell family has since retired from Lifetime Books and now help with the family business at Chalet Suzanne It had been suggested that we stop by and just see the place. The back ground is very interesting, the short history via the link above, doesn't tell the entire story, but it was a fun stop for a break for Justin to get out and run around. As we traveled it was funny to see so many oranges on the ground as you went around turns. In IL we get rocks thrown on us from vehicles, in FL you must get oranges thrown at you from the trucks.

Justin with Mr. Potato Head (Mr. "Tomato Head") using the tray his dad made for him.

At MaMa's breakfast bar, eating (well... eating anything you want, just ask.)

More fun on the beach

Looks like a pretty good throw.

Playing on the beach in Naples.

Justin napping on the beach.
Girls on the Beach
Justin enjoying the sand and his cars.

Happy Birthday MaMa

Yesterday, May 7th was MaMa's birthday. We miss having MaMa near us, but Justin was able to sing her happy birthday over the phone, Happy Birthday MaMa, we all love you.

Fun on the beach and in the water.

Daniel and Wendy body surfing. Naples is on the gulf side, so actual waves aren't that common. We had a few good days of body surfing with fairly decent waves.

Some pic of our time in Naples playing in the ocean. Justin was a bit cautious at first, but it didn't take long for him to be quite brave.

Hmm...no pictures of Abbey. She spent the first few days with her nose in a book. After that she came to life, after she'd read a couple books she had had her fix. No pictures of Dee....she was the photographer most of the time.

Wendy couldn't resist...

It was on sale and marked down several times, so she thought we should take it.

We can't imagine Olivia not being here by next Christmas, but we're just not sure any more. The best guess our case worker has is August, but we've thought it would be much earlier. We're coming up to the 2 year mark of when we started; originally we thought she would have been here by last fall. So this is a very long pregnacy. As my dad said, "I feel like I know her, because I've been praying for her so long." Yet we don't know who she is and our paperwork seems to be just sitting around in China waiting for our turn. Not much happening till we get our referral, which would tell us who Olivia will be. Till then we keep praying for our unknown daughter.