Surgery

Joshua is scheduled for surgery on Tuesday at Seattle Children's Hospital. The surgery will place his wrist in a neutral position. We appreciate the prayers of so many. We hope he will not have to wait long for his surgery since he doesn't do well when he is hungry and is concerned that he cannot eat before the surgery. :) We also pray he doesn't become nauseous from the anesthetic and that his pain can be easily managed. We will return to Seattle in three weeks to remove wires from his wrist and receive a hard cast that he will wear for three more weeks. We are also praying for our two oldest daughters who will be arriving in Seattle on Wednesday around the same time we are leaving to return home. They will be in Seattle for the Regional Speech and Debate tournament.

Forever...

Today we celebrated Resurrection Sunday - Easter. This was Joshua's first time. He enjoyed all of the fun yesterday of decorating and hiding eggs. He has also paid attention, this week, to the story of Easter and remembered much of it as we opened up resurrection eggs today and the kids retold the story. Pete's family was here today. We prayed for our nephew, Matthew, who will soon be deployed to Afghanistan and for his wife. As everyone was leaving tonight and giving hugs and good-byes, Joshua decided to be silly and give me a hug good-bye. I gave him a dramatic hug and told him I would see him in 30 seconds... then he said "see you tomorrow", then I said, "and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that..." and he said with a huge smile, "and forever!!!" Ahhh -- he gets it! Joshua continues to pray for the boys back in China to have forever families (see earlier post -- "son"). I'm including a picture of his good friend from the orphanage. This boy is currently eligible for adoption and we are praying for God to work out all of the details for this sweet boy and the family that God has planned for him. p.s. Joshua tells us his friend didn't like having pictures taken and they would sometimes have to tickle him to make him smile for a photo....

Pictures from our Trip

I didn't realize Rachel was posting our email notes home onto the blog. The posts were pretty detailed at Rachel's request. Our last two days in Morocco were very fun and exciting. We enjoyed meeting many interesting people from all over the world. On Saturday, we went to an adventure camp of sorts up in the mountains and braved a zipline course over a big, deep canyon! We missed our connecting flight home through Germany and spent an extra 24 hours there resting and preparing to come home and hit the ground running. Just after 24 hours home, 5 of the kids and I left for a speech tournament in Post Falls, Idaho. Somehow, I kept my energy up through those next several days. There was a Junior Tournament, so James and Mark got to participate as well. Joshua was given a treat by the tournament director for being so good through the whole tournament. Results: JR. Tournament -- James and Mark were 1st place in the interpretive category with their duo - Hank the Cow Dog. James was 1st place and Mark 2nd place in Impromptu. Mark 2nd place and James 3rd place with their platform speeches (Modern Aviation and The Winter and Valley Forge). Other Tournament Results - Sarah made semi-finals with her Dramatic Interpretation and in Impromptu, Finals with her new Illustrated Oratory speech (6th place) and her Persuasive (4th place overall). Rachel and her partner went 3-3 in debate preliminaries. They lost the 6th round to good friends from their team that went all the way to quarter finals. Other team mates went to finals and placed 2nd. Rachel went to finals in both Apologetics (5th place) and Impromptu (2nd place). The girls are looking forward to the Regional Tournament in Seattle next month.

Mom and Dad's Adventure! Day 4

March 11- Day 4

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We woke up to falling snow today -- which continued all day. Thankfully, we left early for the airport. Once at the airport, we got shuffled around to the wrong place a couple of times before finally finding the special line for SAP. We had a charter flight with Air Berlin. Pretty much like having a United flight completely booked for the company. It was an airbus that seated 300. There are about 890 SAP people here at this incredible resort. Pretty much the nicest place I've ever been. Pete only knew one person who was supposed to be here and it ended up they were on the same flight from Munich. Our flight was delayed by 2 hrs because of weather so we had a long time to visit with them. They both grew up in East Germany. It was interesting to ask them about it. It just happened when we found our seats on the plane that they were seated in front of us -- so we didn't feel quite so out of place. So far, we haven't run into any other Americans -- they all went to the Hawaii version of this event. As far as a romantic getaway -- this week has pretty much been far beyond anything we ever would have dreamed of planning ourselves. We had some mix ups as we arrived, we were moved from one building to another. All of the buildings here are incredibly decorated in Moroccan style, but the one we were moved to is all suites. Three beautiful rooms all to ourselves. It is really hard to adequately describe and really over the top. Pete was trying to straighten out a mixup with our luggage and I was sitting out on our balcony watching the sunset over the palm trees and listening to the exotic sounding birds that changed into exotic sounding night creatures thinking I was probably the first Goodwill shopper to ever sit in that spot! How did I get here??? The evening was much more relaxing than I expected. Tonight was very casual with people milling around a huge banquet hall, sitting on big pillows and enjoying a variety of fun foods and desserts. We ran into another manager that Pete knows, who had all sorts of wonderful and ethusiastic things to say about my husband. He is married to their international HR coordinator -- she was fun for me to visit with. There was no program and this is the evening we don't have to stay late or get up early, so we're back here enjoying our surroundings. Tomorrow evening and the next the dinners are offsite and go until 1am (although you can take shuttles back beginning at 11:00pm -- sheesh...) Our morning is free tomorrow until we go to the Souk (market) at 11:00. I took lots of pictures out of the bus on the way here. Here is the part Rachel is looking for -- the sites and sounds of Morocco -- Nearly all of the women on the street were covered in traditional muslim outfits from head to toe -- they were fairly colorful. Some of the mostly older men were in long dress (Mrs. Lander can tell you the name), but more were dressed in western wear. The streets were bustling and busy since it was rush hour. An interesting mix of busses, cars, trucks, bicycles, motor bikes, horse drawn carriages and donkey carts. As we got out of the main downtown area, there were apartment buildings on the sides of the road with grassy areas or dirt between the building and the highway. This is a modern, four lane highway, yet along the road there were little boys playing a game on the ground, people sitting in the field, limping dogs, mules grazing and a couple herds of sheep -- no fences or anything -- trash strewn around (although the thought did cross my mind that perhaps the trash was just animal scrap bags that the children left behind after their chores -- ha!ha!) As we neared the resort, there were palm trees. In the landscaping in the medians, there were cute orange trees. The oranges looked big and juicy, but the bus driver said they are bitter. We also saw several groves of olive trees. They were very picturesque and fun to see from the air as we were landing. The buildings are all a reddish brick/stucco sort of look. The air was warm and a bit humid because they just had a couple of days of rain before we arrived. It felt so good after the biting cold in Germany! When we got out at our resort, the air smelled slightly spicy. When we entered the buildings they offered us traditional Moroccan tea in cute dark glasses. It tasted a lot like good earth tea. Sweet and slightly spicy. Tonight, they were burning candles everywhere -- in the windows, ledges, stair cases, outside the doors. There are so many sounds of critters outside, I video taped so you could hear it. After dinner, we decided to trying finding the way back to our building on the paths. Right through the calling critters. We had one of those surreal moments when we looked at each other and said -- we're walking in Africa.... As we were coming in for our landing this afternoon and getting a good look at the area, I thought to myself -- so this is Terri's Morocco --- wish I had time to see more of it. We are looking forward to seeing the market tomorrow and the children's village on Saturday. We are feeling a bit awed and very blessed. Praying all of our kids get over their coughing and not make any grandparents sick. Love you all....

Mom and Dad's Adventure! Day 3

March 10- Day 3

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Today, we drove back up into the Alps to see Neuschwanstein Castle. The first part of the name means "new swan". The lake nearby was apparently inspiration for Swan Lake. Swans are quite popular in Bavaria. One room of the castle had 100+ swans in the decor. The castle is quite impressive, but also a sad tale demonstrating again that money doesn't buy happiness. King Ludwig II of Bavaria had it built. 200 builders and artisans. In his bed chamber alone, 14 wood carvers spent 4 years. 10 artists spent 7 years painting the amazing tapastries on the walls. The throne room was covered entirely in artistry from floor to ceiling and is hard to describe. There is 2000 pound chandelier in the center. However, there is no throne -- never made it that far. The castle interior was only 1/3 complete when King Ludwig mysteriously died in the lake along with his psychiatrist. The officials in Munich had decided he was crazy and were trying to remove him. He was a recluse. He had a very small dining room because he didn't like company. He only lived in the castle a total of 170 days. Most of the finished rooms are themed after operas by a composer he admired, who never actually saw the castle dedicated to his work. The castle itself is an amazing structure. It never was finished and was opened to the public 6 weeks after his death in 1861, I think. There is a smaller castle nearby that is also available for tours. It is still owned by the royal family. They still live in Bavaria, but have no power or influence. Our guide says they sometimes bring their friends for special tours.
It was still very cold today, but the sun had come out by the time we got up to the castle area. We had to hike uphill 30 minutes to get there. My fingers got numb on the way back down even with two sets of gloves. So glad I had my New Zealand wool scarf (thank you Lisa!) Afterward, we realized we were only a few kms from Austria, so we took a loop up into the Alps in Austria. It was a beautiful drive through more cute little towns up in the mountains. One town on the way back into Germany was teeming with skiers. There were signs up everywhere saying there was a world cup ski event today through Sunday. On the way back, we stopped at the second Bavarian town that had been mentioned in the travel brochure yesterday -- Murnau. A very cute town, but much bigger than Oberammergau. We ate at a greek restaurant. It was very good, but I didn't feel like eating much after the bratwurst and sourkraut I had earlier in the afternoon. When we tried to ask for our check, a waiter kept asking us if we wanted a shot. I don't know if he misunderstood, thought he was funning or generous, but he brought us two shot glasses of something that smelled like black licorice and tried to convince us to drink up...after the trouble we had finding our way into Munich yesterday, we weren't convinced this would be helpful! Hopefully we didn't offend any of them when we left them behind at the table.
We sure feel blessed by the adventures we have had in Germany the past three days. Today was great because Pete could drive fast on the Autobahn while I enjoyed the scenery. I was again thankful that we didn't have a sports car. Ours came with a Goodyear warning not to drive over 210kph. To avoid blowing out our tires, Pete kept it under 200. He actually only got up that high twice, then realized it wasn't nearly as fun for me. You can sure make good time on those roads though. Sarah, do the metric conversion and tell me how fast dad was going. Most of the time he kept it at 160..There were mercedes and BMWs flying past us from time to time. We are thankful for safety, being able to get warm, beautiful scenery and grandparents and friends helping with our precious babies at home... Tomorrow we fly to a warmer climate! Love you all. k and p

Mom and Dad's Adventure! Day 2

March 9- Day 2

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Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me to feel well. No headache, no sore throat, feeling great! We managed (barely) to stay awake until 8pm before passing out. We both woke up again around 2 am. I really thought it was much later. After I got up and realized what time it was, we both took some tylenol pm and slept until 7:30!!! No problem staying awake tonight.
We awoke to yet colder weather -- 18 degrees and light snow. We found out we would have to hike 30 minutes to get to the castle, so decide not to try that today. We headed out to BWM Wert (BMW world). Sort of a Disney world for grownups. Really. I found out as we were pulling in that my husband has dreamed of visiting since he was a boy! So glad we made it there. It is right next to the Olympic park -- quite amazing archetecture -- not quite the bird's nest, but really very impressive for having been built in 1972. On warm days, you can get harnessed up and climb on the roof! BMW seems to have wanted to outdo the architectural wonders. Their various buildings are truly wonders and amazing. We tried to get some pictures for the boys to enjoy. There is a huge "BMW wert" building filled with BMW cars you can explore and displays. People come there (even from US) to pick up their cars and drive them right out from the middle of the building (we saw one leave). Mid-morning they had someone on a trial bike (like the ones down the street) riding up and down the stairs. Next to that is a huge BMW museum -- Dad spent hours reading every display. The museum is amazing even if you aren't into cars. It truly rivals anything I've ever seen at Disney with its futuristic, enormous displays. The highlight was signing up for a two hour factory tour. The homeschool mom in me was so sad that my boys couldn't see it. It is hard to describe and they didn't allow pictures. We saw all stages of building a BMW. The robotics are simply amazing, incredible and creepy all at the same time. In one little room, there were 600 huge robots zipping parts around and welding them in sequence. In addition to sevarl rooms like that with robots, there are 9000 employees, many on the assembly lines we got to see. I truly have a new appreciation for our old BMW.
While there, we picked up a brochure on visiting Bavarian towns. Okay, I finally figured out that Munich is part of Bavaria (we are staying on the edge of Bavaria park...) Around 4:00, (after 6 hours at BMW Wert), we drove up into the ALPS and into a Bavarian village called Oberammergau. Oh Wow! The drive was beautiful, late in the afternoon the sun was gleaming over the snow covered fields with little farms here and there. The Alps, of course, are beautiful. We went up winding roads up to the village, dad wished he had a BMW and my stomach was thankful we rented the much cheaper Ford! Oberammergau is the town that puts on the Passion play once every 10 years -- they are preparing for this Spring/Summer. Apparently, during the plague they prayed that God would spare their villaged and promised to do this every 10 years in return -- its been going on a LONG time. The village is unbelievably cute, we wished we could have stayed the night up there. We asked a store owner where to eat and she sent us to a Bavarian retaurant. Dad ordered spaghetti, but I wanted Bavarian. I ended up ordering Rahgoulosh with spatzle and salat. The salad was like a piece of art. The restaurant was simple, cute and a bit rustic. There was a man with a big beard, overalls and big stein of beer at the next table. I asked Pete to take my picture (with the cute bottles of water that we get everywhere) and the German looking man in the back ground. When we left, it was dark. Walking through the snow, in the dark little town was like walking through one of those christmas villages that people collect. As we were walking along, the church bells started ringing. I tried to video a little bit. It was really a bit surreal. Worth every bit of the hour's drive up there. We got lost again coming back into town, but eventually found our way back. I stayed warmer today with two layers under my pants, four layers under my coat and two pairs of gloves. I think we might brave the castle tomorrow! We sure wished we could have brought all of you kids with us. There were things today that each one of you would have loved. We thought of you lots. Thank you for letting us come. Love you all -- and love all of you friends too. Thank you for your prayers.

Mom and Dad's Adventure! Day 1

Well, Mom and Dad have left on their grand adventure.
This is Rachel posting for them.
Here's what they've had to say so far!

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Our flight here wasn't too bad. We had personal video choices and I watched Blind Side -- cried my way through it again...then took a nap of sorts. We had a view of the alps as we flew in. Everything here was covered with ice and snow and looked like frozen tundra! We arrived at 10:00 this morning. We had a bit of a challenge navigating our way to the hotel, mostly because every street here has a name that is at least 20 letters long and it is hard to read the signs. I have felt pretty stupid since arriving here. I realized this is the first time I've traveled to a country without knowing at least some of the language. I don't even know how to pronounce the long, confusing words here! I will be going home trying to learn at least a little German in case I ever come back here again. I will not travel to a country again without trying to learn a little of the language. Rachel -- I wish you were here! You would love it. It all looks very German and very European. Pete and I had as much difficulty navigating our way around the subway station -- it really became quite humorous and was probably complicated by our sleep deprivation and jet lag. It was an adventure! We took the subway to Marienplatz which is a shop area, St. Peters church (originally on the site in the 1100s). It is a fun area, but it was so cold we kept ducking into shops every few minutes (even if we weren't interested in them) just to keep warm. I was glad Nancy talked me into knee high bamboo socks, even with those, long underwear, two sweaters, a coat, scarf, leather gloves and ear warmers --it was freezing even in the bright sunshine! Our first stop was to find some lunch since Pete was really hungry. He ordered a pizza, I wanted something "German" and asked the waiter to pick one of three dishes that I had no idea what they were. It turned out to be a glorified mac and cheese dish. We spent some time in the Bavarian gift shops. Most of them sell fancy painted egg shells, fancy coockoo clocks and intricate flat colorful metal artwork of people in Bavarian costume --many varieties -- many of them look like christmas ornaments. Also figurines. We didn't buy anything today -- other than food and "still" water. Our last stop in that area was the famous Hofbrauhaus. We didn't order any beer, but saw lots of varieties of beer around the tables. It was not too loud or roudy since it was mid afternoon on a Monday. Good time to go. Dad had a coffee and pretzel and I had a bowl of brussel sprouts! Tomorrow we are going to drive out to Neuschwanstein Castle. We bought some pretzels and bread back to the room (they sell them everywhere) so that we don't have to go out again tonight. We're both having trouble keeping our eyes open, but are trying to stay awake until 8pm. Haven't had showers since our flight -- so maybe nice hot showers will help. We're excited for our drive tomorrow and thankful for this opportunity to experience another culture see another little part of this interesting planet!

"Son"

About a week and a half ago, I was tucking my boys into bed. After chatting and praying, I started passing out kisses and said something to one of them that included the word "son". Joshua asked, "which one son?" That is his way of asking the meaning of a word. I responded that he was my son, Mark was my son and James was my son -- "three sons!" He then said, "where's four?" He proceeded to talk about his friend back in China that would be coming to America. He had mentioned before that there was a boy from the orphanage that was also going to be coming to America. It had only been a couple of months ago that he finally started to tell me the names of a couple of his friends and talk about them a bit. The conversation started out light hearted as he said he thought his friend should come here and I told him they had too many legos to fit another brother in the room. Joshua started to talk about a boy at the orphanage that was mean to the other children. I told him that I was glad his brothers weren't mean to him and that it was better here. At that point, his mood changed and he got tears in his eyes. I ended up holding him while he had a good cry. Eventually he started talking again and told me about the boys that wouldn't be adopted because nobody wanted them. He told me he had been sad when he went to bed at night and that everyone was sad. This was the first time he had ever said anything like this. He was always smiling and happy in the many pictures we have of him from his time in China and had always smiled and laughed when talking about things in the orphanage. We talked a long time. I asked him to help me remember to pray each night for those boys to have forever families. He has been praying for them ever since. It was hard to hear of the sadness, but also precious to hear his heart for the other children and to know that he wants them to have a family like he has. What a blessing. He is such a sweet and loving boy. For the past 2 or 3 weeks he has wanted to pray all of the time. He prays special prayers for all of us.
There is another chapter to this story. Two days after this conversation I received an email from the yahoo group for families that have adopted from his province. Someone posted that there was a boy from his orphanage on the shared list of waiting children. Long story short, I learned it is the same boy he has been talking about, the same boy that is in almost all of the pictures with Joshua that came from the orphanage. Apparently, his best friend. We are hoping and praying for a family for this precious boy. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was a family nearby? God has done such amazing and unexpected things to bring our two blessing from China into our family. We wait with expectation to see what He has planned and hope to do whatever we can to make sure this boy also has a forever family. Please pray with us. If you feel led to find out more about this boy. Please contact us.

Photo Update

Photo Update
Basketball Boys - Mark and Joshua are on a team coached by Pete. Joshua has a ton of heart and does well with defense. The other picture is James taking a shot. I think he made that one.
Wedding - Our nephew's wedding. Joshua and Anna were in the wedding. Our prayers are with Matt and Brittany as they prepare for Matt to deploy to Afghanistan.
Speech and Debate - January and February have been filled with speech and debate tournaments. Sarah is competing in four speech events - Persuasive, Dramatic Interpretation, Impromptu and Duo Interpretation (see picture with her equally goofy Duo partner - they got first place at their last tournament). Rachel is competing in three speech events - Original Oratory, Impromptu and Apologetics. She is also competing in Team Policy Debate, this year's debate resolution is US Environmental Policy. Both girls are doing very well in all of their events and have qualified all events for the Regional Tournament in April. Rachel is pictured with her beloved debate partner. They thrilled and surprised themselves in the last tournament, making it all the way to quarter finals in a big tournament. You can see some of their club friends celebrating the end of a tournament.
Home school science - you can see Anna was less than thrilled with the worm dissection lab.