Summer of Memories

So I went to Life 101.9's website to nominate a friend for their "Summer of Memories" contest.  This is how the contest rolls:
 
When you were growing up, summer meant a break from school and a chance run and play.  Now summer can feel like a busier time than the rest of the year.  We hope this summer that you and your family are finding time to get away and spend together.
But maybe you know of a family who isn't able to have time together.  Dad is busy working a lot, Mom is working to make ends meet, and the kids are all off doing their own thing.  The one thing your friend and her family could use is some time together, but they can't seem to find it.
You can help!  Nominate that friend and her family for Life 101.9′s Summer of Family Memories.  The winner and their family will receive:

• a $250 gift card to the Coral Ridge Mall
• 6 tickets to a Cedar Rapids Kernels game
• a family meal at Pizza Ranch
• a gift card to Parable Lemstone Christian Bookstores
• a $100 gas card from Kwik Star
• and a nights stay at Country Inn and Suites in either Waterloo or Cedar Falls

 
And as I thought about how I wanted to write up my nomination, I got selfish and wondered if I could nominate my own family.  The pity party of thinking we were deserving subsided enough that I think I put in a pretty good nomination for some friends.  I want my friends to win but if you know someone who's deserving and lives within the Life 101.9 listening area, go on over to their website and write up your nomination.  

wow.

So, I've been wanting to make a trip to CA to see family and friends.  Tonight I saw a picture from way back in the day of my Uncle Kenny and two of my cousins.  My uncle died when I was 7.  It was a walk down memory lane when I saw the picture.  And it reminded me of reason #8 that I want to go home to Kingsburg.  I miss my abuela.  And reason #19, I miss my two cousins who I haven't seen in  years but want to catch up with.  My cousins who lost their dad while we were really young and who I didn't really know when he died but got to know a few years later when they lived with our family. 

 

I even looked at last minute airline tickets thinking I'd make a last minute trip to CA.  But they were $903.  A lot more than I can pay for a ticket.  So, for now, I'll continue to try to plan skype dates with my girlfriends like Baker who request to skype when the wild children are still awake. 

 

Lots going on right now.  Check out my www.journey4hope.blogspot.com for what's rocking my world right now.

Using my fresh Cilantro

Two recipes I love right now.  Thanks to my friend Meg for sharing them with me.
 

Mango salsa 

I always wing it on the amounts…. but here are the ingredients: 

Diced mangoes

White or Red onion (small diced)

Cilantro­

Fresh lime juice

Fresh lemon juice

Hot sauce (like Tabasco) – little to taste

Salt/pepper as needed

 

Super simple but very tasty!

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Black Bean Salsa (from Cooking Light)

Combine all of the following together, let sit for a bit in fridge to meld flavors.

3 cups chopped tomato (about 2 medium)

1 cup chopped red bell pepper (about 1 medium)

1 cup chopped green bell pepper (about 1 medium)

1/2 cup chopped red onion

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1/3 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped

1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 (11-ounce) can extrasweet whole kernel corn, drained

 

Blessings

I'm loving this song by Laura Story.  The first time I heard it, I'd just been praying for a dear friend who was very ill in the hospital after multiple nightmarish things happening.  Check out these lyrics:

 

       "Blessings"

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near?

What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

And all the while You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near?

And what if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near?

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst
This world can't satisfy?

And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise?

What a Day

When your son is in the men's bathroom, needs help wiping and your husband is gone, what would you do? I called on Ben. He does not do that. So instead he cleared the bathroom and guarded it while I took care of the son who didn't want to put down his toys long enough to wipe. Grr. Good thing was that he knows his dad's full name when asked by the guy in the next stall after asking for his dad.


When you let your daughter wear a gold ring so that she too feels like a princess and she loses it, what do you do? She didn't want the ring to get wet when she washed her hands at DQ so she took it off. She thought to tell us about it when we sat down at the wedding reception 20 minutes later. Ryan went back to DQ, asked about the ring, searched high and low in the bathroom, went threw the nasty trash and no ring. Visions of passing that down to her own daughter some day are gone. It was the first and last time she wore it. Sad.


Speaking of DQ, while there for a slushy I saw a woman using sign language. In the deaf culture it's rude to know sign and not tell them because you can basically eaves drop from a long distance away. I waved my hands, got the women's attention and informed her that I knew sign language. Excited to use what little sign I knew, I went over to the table and sat down with the deaf couple. That's right, both deaf. My sign language was never great but it's been a long time and it's really not good now. Thankfully he could read lips. We managed a very simple conversation. My hands were shaky as I tried to recall the various motions to converse. I was excited to try. I think they were also excited that I took the time to try.


The woman went into the bathroom after Bethany. If she found the ring and kept it, I hope it blesses her. Obviously, I'd rather them be honest and report the ring. But if someone else is going to have it, maybe it will be a blessing for them.


JB and Blake's wedding was awesome today. Loved it. Loved the message that Shane gave that challenged not only the bride and groom but all of us who are married. Good stuff. Their reception was equally fun. It's always good to catch up with friends.


A long and stressful day is done. A few other gray hair moments today:

• Kids streaking their undies


• cutting a finger on the glass of a pic frame that he opened up when he was supposed to be in bed. Ruined picture, cut finger, disciplined child and tears could have easily been avoided with obedience.


• and a few other things that aren't worth mentioning.

These Two

I miss these two ladies like crazy. Oh how I wish I could teleport them to Iowa so I could hang out with them for a weekend.

With my Abuela, I'd love to make fresh tortillas and see if she'll tell me about old times.


With my Nanny, I'd love to eat chocolate gravy, go for a walk and watch wheel of fortune after we plant some flowers.

But since I can't do either of those two things right now, I'll just show off my two beautiful Grandma's who are both amazing women.

This past week we've had fun with Grandpa and my two nephews. We went to the museum/aquarium, went fishing and celebrated Scott's 6th birthday. Here's a few pictures to share. In no particular order (because I'm too lazy to re-arrange them):

Scott had a hand full of gifts. I love that there weren't tons of new stuff. I love that we mostly just hung out and celebrated. I love that one of his friends/cousins gave him a gift all on his own, without the help of an adult.

No super detailed cake this year. He didn't rave over it. But he didn't complain about it either.
Oh, and my daughter. My spitting image. Yes, there's a great need to pray for the future of this child. In this photo she's saying "look momma, I can walk down and backwards back up the slide". Great Bethany.

My boy in his new glasses. Hopefully tomorrow we can get them adjusted to his face, cut their nails, and do other things that we've been too busy to take care of this past week.

This afternoon Ryan took off from work. Ryan took his son and my daddy-o mini golfing. Scott and Dad both managed a hole-in-one.

She was screaming with excitement over the fish she caught. I caught video of her reeling in the fish while letting out her squeels and giggles.

Such a great person to take pics of. Sometimes she's stubborn and won't smile for me. We actually took several really cute pics in which she would not smile. Again, my spitting image. But she is cute. And if she's cute and she's my spitting image, that means... yes I followed that too.

The three littles petting a turtle. Three energetic kids all within 12 months of age. Oh, what fun.

Another of my girl. As long as one person was paying to steer the boats in the water, my kids thought they were steering. It was awesome. Until I made them leave.

Birthday Boy

Happy 6th Birthday Son.

We love you!

Hanging Out

We've been busy the last few days.  I was able to take yesterday off and hang out with my kids, 2 of my nephews and their grandparents.  We ventured to the Mississippi River Museum for the day. 
 
A few things I learned yesterday:
- Look in the seat of the van before you have your husband cancel your debit/credit card.
- When husband does "freeze" the card, make sure your backup credit card hasn't been expired for 13 months.
- When your backup card is expired and you need to unfreeze your debit/credit card, make sure you know the pin or they WILL NOT unfreeze the card for you.
- Don't be grumpy with the bank employee when she doesn't help you or you'll have to take more time to call back later to apologize for said grumpiness.
- The T@rget in Dubuque is not a super T.
 
And a few things at the museum
- Take kids super early so they're not there over lunch and nap.
- It's warm there, dress accordingly
- Dress the 5 kids in the same color shirt so they're easier to keep track of.
- Balancing the interests of a 9 y/o and a 3 y/o take effort.
- Be prepared to spend a few bucks to get in ($15/adult, $10/child).
- Enjoy the museum even if you're not a fan of museums. 
 
Today I'm back at work. 
 
On tonight's agenda: Fishing at the Donlon's pond.  Should be fun!

life

These were both taken a few weeks ago.  Scott's black eye is now gone.  I'm sure they'll have new bumps and bruises this week.

 

The kids are having fun with the many new friends and family that are around.  Some friends are staying with us for the next month or two.  They came Saturday.  Plus my dad and two nephews flew in on Saturday.  They're staying 1 week.  Last night we had 4 more guests arrive late just for one night as they were passing through.  As you might imagine, our kids have had no shortage of friends to pla with.

 

This week my oldest son turns six.  He's such a joy to have.  It's going to be a busy week around our place!

my son

My kids are growing up.  It's been a busy weekend with food prep, visiting friends, etc and my kids have been rock stars at just going with the flow.  Anyway, tonight Scott was so cute.  We were playing with sparklers and he would have nothing to do with them.  He was chasing lightning bugs.  At one point, his friend killed a lightning bug and Scott was upset.  When I went over to see what Scott was upset about, he said the cutest thing:

 

Lightning bugs are nature's fireworks.

 

Simple but true.  He proceeded to chase nature's fireworks to celebrate Indpendence Day (a day early I know) instead of play with store-bought ones.  Oh how I love that boy!

Happy Birthday Princess!

When it gets warm again, we'll be making great use of our Deluxe Kid Wash. We got the idea from my favorite kid magazine Family Fun. I came home from work one day to see a bunch of PVC pipe on the back of his vet truck. The next day Ryan spent the afternoon with the PVC pipe and the printout instructions found here. Curious kids sometimes helped and sometimes hindered.

The next day, even though it wasn't super warm out, the kids played in the kid wash. As I watched them run through having a blast, I had one thought going through my mind:

No more official baths at our house this summer!

I figured if I just take some shampoo outside, they can just get their hair washed out there and call it good. What do you think? I'll let you know how it works.

So this is the picture from their website and magazine of their finished product. For some reason it looks a bit cooler than ours. Here's the modifications that Ryan made on his creation. First of all, no cool pool noodle (3 double-o words in a row, wow) on ours or the cute sign. I mean, it's cue and all but it really does nothing for how the actual thing works. The sponges are hung by a hole through them and then strung up. I suggested to Ryan a short piece of of PVC pipe through the whole so the string doesn't rip the sponges. The cute little nylon strips can be a variety of things. Ours currently doesn't have anything hanging but hopefully that will get added. It can be nylon strips, or rubber webbing stuff for non-skid mats, or cloth that can be removed and washed and stored at the end of the year. No cool stop sign on ours either. I'm wondering if there's something cool we can add there. If you have any ideas, let me know. Thankfully we have LOTS of water pressure but you might have to drill smaller holes for it to work... or to waste less water!

My husband is a rockstar!

Recently while trying to organize my hard drive, I found the following article (it's a few years old now) and thought it would be fun to share.  He is amazing.  I've also included a picture of him at work, although it doesn't go exactly with the story.  Happy reading friends.

 

The Interesting Life of a Veterinarian

            Everybody has some interesting stories when it comes to their jobs.  I think I seem to have more than my fair share of interesting stories.

            Allow me to give you an example. . .   About four years ago my parents were living in Arizona but had bought a house north of Decorah.  Because of this I would drive up there every other week and mow the lawn. 

            Every week my wife and I attend a Bible study on Thursday nights.  One of those weeks our Bible study was going to have a social at a dairy farm north of Calmar so I thought I would run up to mom and dad's house to mow the lawn before the social. 

            So I drove up early with the vet truck to mow the lawn and then swung by the farm on the way home to enjoy the social.  When I arrived everyone else was down at the calf condos so I made my way down there to see what everyone was talking about.  As I chatted with everyone the farmer walked up to me and jokingly said that he was glad I had brought the truck because he had a cow who had started to calve and wasn't progressing as quickly as he thought it should.

            That was all that was said and we continued on with our social.  A couple of hours, and a couple of burgers later, we were sitting around the fire enjoying the nice spring evening.  The group was starting to break up and my wife and I were talking about heading home when I heard someone come up behind me.

            "Ryan, I hate to bother you and I will understand if you don't want to, but that cow still hasn't calved and I think the calf is backwards.  If you don't want to help I'll understand and call my vet, but I thought since you were here. .  . "

            "No problem.  I know that if I pulled onto a farm at this time of night and later found out that another vet had been there the entire time, I would not be happy with them.  I'll get my stuff."

            "Now I just want to make clear that I am very happy with my current vet and I am not looking to change," he informed me.

            "Understood," I replied.

            It did not take long for the news that "Doc Ryan" was going to be pulling a calf to trickle through the group.  Most of them had not grown up on a farm and if they had it was a beef farm so they had not gotten in on any of this excitement before.

            Next think I know it looked like lemmings heading to the sea as a line of onlookers filed into the barn.  Some small kids were present so all on lookers were encouraged to stand several feet away.  I have found this to be less scary for the kids because sometimes the cows make a lot of noise when I get to pulling.  Plus if the calf is dead, which is very possible in a breach calf, it is easier to convince the kids that it is sleeping.

            While I was getting my equipment together I could distinctly hear

            When I checked the cow I was delightfully surprised to find that it was a pretty straight forward breach calf.  With minimal time and effort I was able to reposition the calf, get my chains placed, and hook up the puller.

            The addition of the puller lead to some excitement amongst the onlookers.  They really got to talking when I started using it to pull the calf, but I don't think I really understood the impact it had on them until I read an email from one of them the next day.  It was obvious that he had not been in on many pulls before.

            All in all I thought the night was a success.  I enjoyed good food with good friends, had the opportunity to show off some of the nicer aspects of veterinary life, delivered a live calf without much trouble, enjoyed the short lived status of local hero, and to top it all off I got paid.  On time!

faces of et

Click here to view this photo book larger

waiting

Like I just mentioned on my other blog, I've been busy with everything but blogging.  Life has been fun, and annoying lately.  The annoying part is likely due to the fact that I'm busy and not making much time for disobedient children's attitudes.  Thought I'd share a few quick funnies from the last week:
 
1. Bethany cried and whined when I dropped her off at Grammy's on Tuesday.  Mom informed me that night that it only took 3 shots of coffee to calm her down.  Yes, this child loves coffee.  She's been known to steal my mom's cup and then go hide while she drinks it.  Not even the black coffee keeps my daughter at bay.
 
2. Bethany again.  She was so excited about having her teeth cleaned.  Overly animated and chatty, I could hear her the entire time she was in the other room.  When finished, she came to the room I was in and boldly announced: "Sandy tickled my teeth and I got PRIZES!"  She's a doll.
 
3. Scott, normally our perfect child, is full of piss and vinegar lately.  Well, maybe not the first one.  He's really struggling to keep his promise to the GI doc this week and we're getting really sick of the accidents. 
 
4.  Speaking of those types of problems, Judah has been like his brother this week.  Twice.  The first time I found a puddle in front of the toilet.  Come on son... you were so close.  The second time I found him in the hall holding himself from peeing more.   Arrg.  Not fun.
 
5.  My kids are fun though.  Scott continues to be interested in biographical stories of people like Harriet Tubman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, etc along with classic tales like Tom Sawyer, our current read. 
 
6.  Last night after we heard about a great ministry called Chain of Love (www.chainoflove.org), my 2 littles were found in the basement of the church playing make-believe Go-Fish.  I saw them, chuckled and let them continue playing.

7. Okay, that's it for now.  If you want to hear more about our trip, we'll be doing a community-wide presentation on Saturday at the Elgin FBC at 6pm. 

Met Them

One of the goals of my trip to Ethiopia was to meet Judah's birth mom and brothers.  I knew that we would be in the general area of Judah's mom.  I didn't know if that would mean a 2 hour drive down a dirt road or what.  What I didn't know is that she was a 20 minute drive from where we were staying in Soddo.  On Sunday, Tuto went out on his motorbike with the information and a picture in his hand to find Ms. A.  Four hours later after my hopes were slim, he arrived at Shanto and gave us all a thumbs up.  Who knew such a simple gesture would make me cry!
 
On Monday morning, our driver took us back to Ms. A in his landcruiser.  My emotions were overwhelming as I watched the local village people break branches along the foot path so the "ferenge" could get through in the landcruiser.  While one woman walked along the path that led us to Ms. A, I was overcome with how wonderful the people of Ethiopia are. 
 
We did meet Judah's birth mom for a second time.  And we met the brothers.  And I'm so, so thankful.  In addition to that, my friend, Dr. Jo went along with us to check on our birthmom who said she'd been very sick.  Jo happily reported that mom and boys were well and then proceeded to treat 30+ people for MMR.
 
Thank you FOVC staff, Dr. Jo, and Guillermo (our driver) for blessing us in such an incredible way!!!
 
For the other AP's reading, there was no involvement of Holt for this meeting.  They didn't have the staff available.  We did not take her anything except the one picture of Judah.  She had received the letters and pictures we sent in the past.  Great news. 
 
More from me later...

in DC

Welcome to the United States.  Oh, how I love those words!  We're in DC and just had lunch for breakfast.  Thanks to the wonder worker Dr. Jo, I slept well about half of the flight!  In just a little bit, we'll be loading for our last flight.  We'll land in Minneapolis, then pray that our shuttle guy and luggage find us quickly, then start the 4 hour drive home... oh, I'm eager to be there.

home stretch

Just wanted to share with everyone that we're on the home stretch of our trip.  After a bad start to the morning, we just arrived back in Addis Ababa, where we'll fly out from.  It was an amazing but difficult few weeks.

Please continue to pray for our team.  That everyone will arrive in Addis safely and then return safely.  Pray for God to bring Shalom to our team!

from the guest house where the kind lady lets me sneak on her computer...

TB

We went on a little walk. I took the camera along. Today I heard Shane talking about God's attribute of being "beautiful". Shane's seminary professor summed beautiful up as "all things desirable". What a way to describe our God. Below are a few pictures of some of the beautiful people/things God has blessed us with:

Look at this beautiful smile.

our Judah.

our beauty queen.

can't get a "normal" shot from this girl. her candids are awesome. crazy hair and all.

no longer a kindergartner.

glad they have a sense of humor.

and this was the "serious" one.

I get this look all the time. ALL the time. This is BEtHANy

(she typed her own name and requested the purple font)

thanks big brother for helping.

i think the gloves helped her grip

little brother helped a bunch too.

I have to sweet talk them with a silly picture...in order to get a normal one
our beloved dog isn't normally so beloved. this is Scott shaking his fist at Harley and Harley running off looking ashamed.

this girl loves her new garden gloves. too bad i didn't get to dig in the garden with her yesterday. she carried around a pack of seeds and asked me multiple times to plan them.

Bethany: "no Harley!"