On his way to Rome....

My brother, Vince, who visited us for 3 weeks recently, went back to California last week. Today, he is on his way to Rome to study near the Vatican for the next 4 years. Vince is a Norbertine monk in California. Like the Franciscan monks, they wear long robes, but not brown...they wear white. Sometimes he will also wear a regular black priest suit and white collar, but normally he wears the white gown.

Vince, who is now known as Fr. Alan in his community, will always be my goofy, little brother...Vince or Vinnie as we call him.

Anyways, our thoughts and prayers are with Vinnie today as he travels to Rome on his long mission. Peace!

Luanna's 4th Birthday!

Monday, August 18th was Luanna's 4th birthday. We had a wonderful day with her. My brother, Vince, from California, has been in town for the past 3 weeks visiting us. Lots of our family joined us in going to the Cleveland Zoo on her birthday. Luanna loved seeing the giraffes, and we saw the new baby giraffe, just born on August 10th. That night, we had a birthday celebration for Lu at our house with chocolate cake and soy ice cream.

Luanna loved all her gifts, with some of her favorites being: a Dora umbrella, Polly Pockets, Lulu books and a pink dress.

Contemplating China....

With the Olympics under way here in Beijing, China, Ken and I have often been thinking of Luanna's adoption. How we were in Beijing in December 2006 when they were still constructing the buildings for the Olympics. We watched how the swim arena was being built with its crystal blue walls, and took photos of the construction. It was very cool to be there and now witnessing Michael Phelps swimming in there and getting all his gold medals for the USA!

To me, thinking about our China adoption is both heartwarming and also heartwrenching, especially when I think of Luanna's birth mom (and dad) and what they were possible feeling and going through before giving her up. With Luanna's birthday coming up soon (August 18), which was also the day she was abandoned, I will never know for sure who her parents were or all the reasons behind why they gave her up. I often try to put myself in Luanna's shoes, so
sometimes I feel angry at them, because I know she may feel those feelings when she gets older (I know I would). Other times I am just glad they chose to give her a better life.

Here is an article written by a Korean adoptee, who at 23, went back to Korea to find some answers of why she was given up.
Origami Crane Story

Even though this is written with the Korean perspective, it really hit home for me as well. I can imagine Luanna's Chinese mother went through all the pain and anguish as these birth moms did. I think of her often, pray for her, wish I could find her, meet her, hug her and assure her all is well....but most of all, I Thank her for choosing LIFE for Luanna.
Luanna loves all life, and she especially loves little bugs, which I find endearing. When she finds one, she will pick it up, speak to it for awhile, blow it kisses then let it go. Here she is with a little green cricket that she found at the park. She grew especially fond of this little cricket, and was very concerned that this cricket had lost his family. I assured her the cricket would be OK and would find his family soon, if she let him go. So, she did.

Kids' Simple Accomplishments!

Oliver has finally learned how to ride a 2 wheeler bike (with no training wheels). For some reason, Oliver has always had a difficult time pedaling and riding a bike, as if his brain just could not comprehend pedaling. ?? He is our only child who has had trouble pedaling. The other day, Ken took Oliver out alone to the park down the street to teach him how to pedal a bike and how to do it on 2 wheels. Ken was determined. So, basically, Oliver went right to riding a 2 wheel bike...since he had never ridden a bike at all...even one with training wheels. Even though he is 7 years old, this is such a big accomplishment for him! We are so proud of him! Today, he was so excited that he could do this, he wanted to show me and so we went to the park and he rode around the parking lot....on 2 wheels. I was amazed that he learned to do this all in one night with Ken. Such a simple thing, but it was a BIG accomplishment for Ollie.


The girls love riding their little bikes!


Some more simple accomplishments are Isaiah and Jeremy getting awards for their homeschool testing improvements. Last year, I started using OHVA for homeschooling the 2 older boys. With them getting older, and getting into more difficult subject matters, I needed more organization and also wanted to make sure my kids were getting taught what they needed to know....basically to understand school testing, to not be lazy or behind in their studies and to ensure they could get into good colleges in the future (every parents' hopes and dreams). I found a virtual school that another homeschooling friend of mine was using with her kids, called OHVA/K-12. This was our 2nd year using this, since the boys really liked it. We were able to get a free computer as well as textbooks, workbooks, reading and phonics books, science equipment, math manipulatives, maps, ect ect. Everything was free and colorful and wonderful! The boys really enjoyed the books, and we are also still able to incorporate a lot of additional homeschooling outings and co-op classes. At the end of the 2006-2007 school year, the boys did have to take the OAT (Ohio Achievement Test), and they did OK, but not great, with it being their first year of real testing. This year, for the 2007-2008 school year, they took the OAT tests again and did much better! They had such great improvements, that OHVA sent these certificates of improvement to both of them...and here they are...proud of their achievements! We are looking forward to another fun year of homeschooling coming up soon, and this year, Oliver will also be doing OHVA as well.


Jeremy has been working soooo hard lately on Football. He has had football practice EVERY weekday night since mid-July. Some nights are especially difficult when it's hot and he has to wear all the equipment. But, Jeremy has held in there and is doing great. His stamina and strength is increasing, as he has been working hard as a Line Backer and Running Back. We can not wait to see his first Football game coming up the weekend of August 23rd. I'm sure I will have a lot more photos and write ups about his upcoming games.


And, with swim lessons this year, Isaiah and Jeremy graduated from Level 4 to Level 5, Oliver made it from Level 2 to 3, Kateri graduated from Tot 4 all the way up to Level 2 and Luanna graduated from Tot 4 to Level 1! All of them have made tremendous progress with swimming.



Lastly, the girls just finished their summer session of Gymnastics. Both of them did great! I was so proud of their wonderful cart-wheels and round-offs. Kateri did so well that she graduated to the 6-8 yr old level Invitational Gymnastics class! The teacher told me that Luanna is not far behind her and soon will be invited to be in the older class as well. So, it looks like they both will continue with gymnastics in the Fall. Great job girls!

Surprise from Christy!

The day of my last post...as I was writing about how sad we were that our 3rd sister, Christy, was not in town for Birthday Week...she was sneakily driving in from Columbus to surprise us!!
Christy could not wait to scoop up baby Elliot and give him some lovin'!

She showed up on Saturday afternoon and we all had a fun day, hanging out at the BGSD Softball Tournament, which most of our family was involved in playing and then going out to dinner that night at Red Robin's. Christy, her husband, Luke, their 3 kids and 2 dogs stayed the night at Kathy's house. My kids also spent the night at Kathy's to play with their cousins and have a sleepover. What a fun ending to Birthday Week! Here are all 5 sisters (and quite a few of our kids too).

Jeremy and cousin, Emma, have such fun together.


Our whole family was able to get together on Saturday...something that is a rare feat with so many of us now.

Some of the Sports Data Softball Team in between games. They ended up playing 4 straight games on Saturday! They lost the tournament, but came in 3rd place overall.

Birthday Week!

This past week was Birthday week for me and my sisters! Christy's bday is August 4th, Kathy's is August 5th and mine is August 7th. We had such fun growing up and having a whole week of birthdays, and usually having a huge Triple Birthday Party. Sometimes we'd fool people and tell them we were triplets, with all the same birthdays.
Me and the kids on my birthday!

Here are Kathy and I, missing our 3rd "triplet" sister, who now lives in Columbus, a few hours away, so she was not at our birthday celebration this year :( We missed you Chrees! Christy and I are actually twins for 3 days, since we are less than a year apart (Irish Twins).

Here we are in 2007....Kathy, Christy and Betsy last year for our birthdays. We celebrated while on vacation in North Carolina with the whole extended family.

This year, I enjoyed my birthday, going out to lunch with family at Ruby Tuesdays and then we all went out to dinner for Chinese at Hunan's, and back to my parents home that night for vegan cake and soy ice cream.
Our group at dinner.

Elliot is 3 months old!

I had wanted to post earlier...on Elliot's actual 3 month birthday, but we were in Michigan at the time. We took a short trip there from Friday-Sunday to go to Ken's cousin, Scott, and his new wife, Jamie's wedding.
It was a fun trip and we stopped at the African Animal Safari place in Sandusky, where the animals all come up to your car and you feed them. The kids enjoyed seeing all these big animals stuff their big heads in our van and we fed them carrots and grains.

The kids at the Animal park. It was a very hot day!

Ken, feeding a friendly llama. They all seemed to like him a lot!

A buffalo, preparing to stick his head in the van.

Jeremy & Elliot hanging out.

The wedding was fun and I think we had the most fun playing in the hotel swimming pool with extended family.

The kids hanging out in the shade after the wedding. It was a very hot day...again.
There were 3 baby boys all born within the same year in our family. Here is Ken with his brother, Chris and cousin, Jason.
Chris with baby Henry, 14 mos, Ken with baby Elliot, 3 months and Jason with baby Nolen, 9 mos.

Here we all are with some of the extended family and the newly married couple, Scott and Jamie.





Elliot is wonderful and big, and 3 months old now. He weighs almost 17 lbs and is 26 inches long. He is a big guy and is so smart too. He plays this funny game where he takes his blanket and bites it and growls at it...like a cute puppy. Then he laughs at himself because he knows it is just a funny thing that he is doing...imitating his furry, canine siblings.
I love this photo of Elliot. He looks so delicious and fat!