Aliya's Florida adventure

How is this possible? This picture was taken just 2 years ago, while Bibi (Anaya's mom) was at Layla house to bring her home. If you've read this blog for a long time, you will remember this girl as Aliya's best friend. You may also remember that she is the girl we first thought we would adopt. She is the one we were pursuing at the time of the fire. It turned out that she was a very important piece of our adoption journey to Aliya, although she was not to be our daughter. She already had a family but seeing her face on a waiting child list led us to adopt the girl who was to be ours!

The same 2 girls just 2 years later! Is this as mind blowing to anyone else as it is to us? The first picture looks like 2 girls who live in an orphanage. The second one looks like 2 girls who are loved and treasured in a family...2 typical American girls.

From this...

TO THIS!!!!

Upon finding out that we were adopting best friends, Bibi and I made a commitment to keep these girls together as best friends. We would get them together whenever possible, even though we live many states away.

Best friends reuniting at the airport. Aliya went for a week to visit Anaya in July. They had the time of their lives!

They nearly were eaten by a shark at Universal.

Spent time at the Portifino Resort there. Look at those Ethiopian beauties!

It was a time to talk and remember their time at the orphanage. They shared even more of their stories with each other, which was healthy for them. But mostly they enjoyed themselves in the present and talked about the future. Because they have families who treasure them the sky is the limit for their future. In fact, Aliya came back announcing that she now wants to be a doctor...either an HIV or cancer doctor. She wants to return to Ethiopia to help people. I love this idea and we'll support her in whatever she chooses to do. We all know she is determined enough to do anything she sets her mind to;)

Over the past 2 months, we have seen changes in Aliya. She seems to be understanding what it means to be in our family. She understands how we work and what doesn't work (slamming doors, not giving us eye contact, lying, rudeness) and how to function peacefully in our home. We know high school will bring a whole other bunch of issues but we feel we've gotten her over a huge hump in terms of being a member of our family. She has become a happy and well adjusted 15 year old. It was hard work and sometimes I didn't know if I could do it another day. This is probably not the picture I painted over the last 18 months on this blog but I can now tell you that all that hard work has paid off.

We are thankful that God led us to adopt a teenager.

The Wedding

Sorry these are a little out of order but here are a few of the wedding pictures from two weeks ago. The wedding was in our back yard and turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day! Thunderstorms were threatening but God held them back:)

Blaine and De built this pergola next to our pond for the ceremony. It turned out beautifully and we'll enjoy it for years to come. Behind the pond used to be all weeds but they worked together to make it look like a park. My sister in law strung crystals and hung them from the pergola...so pretty!

Katie and De went with the unity sand instead of the unity candle just in case they had a windy day.

Katie saying her vows...just seconds before the tears started and she had to whisper the rest.

How did I get these so out of order??? I LOVE this picture because not only are Katie and Blaine crying, Blake has lost it at this point. He was overwhelmed and seeing his dad and sister both crying...he couldn't hold it in:) Misganaw is unfazed and is looking for our ducks, it seems.

Thank you for the beautiful sunshine Lord!!

Yea! Married!

M.J. and his adorable cousin (also adopted-from Colombia), Maria. They love each other so much!

Father of the bride with his daughter:)

The wedding party...Mihiretu, Aliya, Trevor (De's brother), Kelly (friend), M.J., Katie, Maria, De, Kammi (friend), Blake, Heather (my niece) and Damien (De's nephew).

The wedding was all that it was dreamed to be. It was so personal and heart felt. It was small, just the way Katie wanted it...only 75 people.

After the wedding, we all went down to McCormick & Schmick's for a delicious dinner. We showed a sweet video that Katie's Aunt Jenny made for her which included De answering questions about why he loved Katie and how his life would be if she wasn't in it. He was so honest and it was a tear jerker. The best part is that he said, "You were the one who introduced me to Christ and my life will never be the same for that."

Then we had a surprise video to show. I had Maste and Sumer (friends from Ethiopia) secretly make up a video of their friends in Korah wishing them well and congratulating them on their wedding. Surprisingly, I was able to keep it quiet (a miracle in itself) so it was a complete surprise to Katie and De. A highlight was of Maste telling De that if he was in Ethiopia, he would have had to jump over a cow or several cows to earn a girl like Katie to marry! De loved that:)

Katie and De took a quick honeymoon at a downtown hotel because the only other place they wanted to go was Ethiopia. It seems that they have found someone to work for them while they are away so...a honeymoon in Ethiopia it is!

Our friends, Kevin and Denise have their tickets all booked (non-refundable to boot) as have Blaine and I for 14 days in October:) We are absolutely beyond excited to have the opportunity to take this trip with our friends and introduce them to the people who have captured our hearts.

Katie and De will be joining us and we can't wait to share this experience all together!

God has been so good to us. We are thankful for all that He's brought us through and for the fact that He's brought us out to the other side. We're thankful for a great son in law who loves the Lord and our daughter with all his heart.

God has brought many gifts out of the fire we had. This trip is just one more. We figured out that we had enough miles on our credit card to pay for our airline tickets to Ethiopia! Everything I had to re-purchase went on that credit card. I thought at least we could get some miles out of the deal. Never did I dream that we'd have enough to pay for this trip!

Good does come from bad:)

A very big week!

25 years ago today, Blaine and I were married. I know, we're having a hard time believing it, too! We were 19 and 20 years old and totally in love. We had no cold feet or second thoughts. We'd already been a couple for 5 years...Yes, really! Middle school sweethearts:) Through all those years, we never had a break-up or separation of any kind. Never even considered it.

Never would we have even imagined the direction our lives would take over our years of marriage! I'm so glad God doesn't show us what's to come...I would have completely freaked out. He's brought us through many things. Blessings beyond what we could have imagined. Hardships, too. Through it all, Christ has been our center and has led and guided us through all major life events. I can tell you neither of us foresaw being the parent to 5 children!! We hadn't even considered adoption 25 years ago...never entered our minds. We thought 2 would be perfect and we'd have them young so that we'd still be young when they left the nest...lots of us time!

Ha! God had other plans, didn't He?? (Insert HUGE smile here!) I absolutely cannot imagine at this point our lives any differently than they are. Blake has already left the nest and now this Sunday, Katie and De will be getting married. My baby girl. If things had been left to us and God had not intervened in His amazing way, we'd be empty nesters in 5 days. The thought frightens me, honestly. I'm just not ready for that.

God knew in all His wisdom that we needed more kids, even when we did not see that.

So this is a big week at our home.

Our 25th anniversary!

Daughter getting married!

M.J. lost his first tooth today!

So thankful that God knows more than we do:)

Blessings,

Laura

Beautiful shower

Look at this shower food! It tasted as pretty as it looks.

These are cake on a stick! Also as yummy as they looked. Later we had our choice of a gorgeous chocolate cake, dotted with fresh raspberries. Inside each raspberry, she put a little Godiva white chocolate pearl. The other choice was a fresh fruit tart. I chose a little of both! Good choice:)

Katie's aunts gave her a beautiful shower tonight. They had a great vision, did all the work and this was the result:) All I had to do was provide the backyard and make sure it was mowed. Absolutely stunning.

My sweet bride! Three weeks from tomorrow, Katie and De will be getting married in our backyard.

We had the most beautiful weather. Praying God provided a day exactly like today on June 26th!

As the evening wore on, all of the lit candles (some hanging in trees, some on the bridge that spans the little river in our pond...candles everywhere!) mirrored the stars in the sky.

There were a lot of special people there...cousins, aunts, great aunts, grandmas, wonderful friends, oh yeah...and the mother of the bride! We had the best night! Thanks Auntie's for all the thought, work and LOVE you put into showering Katie with blessings. How blessed we are.

My girl

Aliya brought a few things with her when we picked her up in Ethiopia. This was one of them. A very, very precious treasure. It's a picture of her on a beach outing with a friend. I don't know how old she is here but I'm guessing maybe 9?

She is so cute, isn't she?

This is precious for so many reasons. It's a special gift to have a piece of your history in the form of pictures or momentos. Not everyone has those things. We take them for granted here but we shouldn't assume everyone has the same physical memories that we have.

Aliya had her final choir concert last night. It's her final middle school concert ever. They made it special by having the kids bring a picture of them as a baby and then a current picture and while they sang a couple songs, the pictures played in the background. Such a great idea, but what if Aliya hadn't had *this* one picture of herself? She would have been the only kid not to have one. I can tell you what she'd have done. She wouldn't have wanted to even go to that concert and as stubborn as that girl is, she would have stayed home. And I wouldn't have blamed her. Ouch. That would have hurt and been such a reminder that life was hard and wasn't fair to her.

So if you are a teacher please remember this:) These kind of assignments can remind our kids who were older when they joined our families that they are not equal with the other kids.

Anyway, off my soap box:)

As I watched Aliya last night standing in the first row of altos, I thought, "This looks like a girl who has always lived her and been in this school." She looked so comfortable and happy. She danced and did the motions to the songs. She giggled and interacted with the girl next to her, like they'd been friends all their lives. I was so proud of her.

It's hard to believe she's only been here just over a year now. She's getting more comfortable and at home. The first year had some pretty rough parts but now we're all finding our groove and it feels so good!

Truly, God does not give us more than we can handle:)

Blessings,

Laura

The promised pics!

Reno, Katie and Blake. Reno is Blake's new buddy. He's a nice dog and a great companion. The kids LOVE him.

Here is the basement flood that happened a few weeks ago. Ugh...so hard to see since it was all NEWLY re-done from the fire. Oh, well:)

Katie and her lovely bridesmaids at her shower.

MJ at his party for his preschool friends. How can my baby be 5??

All of us (minus De who was working) at MJ's family birthday party.

Here they are!! These are our 6 precious little ducklings. Blaine thought it would be fun to get an incubator and some duck eggs and let the kids watch the process. Let me tell you, it was just as much fun for the adults as for the kids. I don't know why we never did this before! We kept the 6 eggs in the incubator for about 25 days or so. One day, we noticed a little, tiny peck hole in one of the eggs. Then another and another egg had little holes. Within 2 days, we had our first duckling. Mihiretu got to see the second hatch. Katie and De got home in time to watch the third one and the other 3 were out by the time morning came!

Misganaw and duckling. This little guy or girl is just under 2 days old! I had no idea they would be this big (not sure how they EVER fit in those chicken sized eggs) and agile! They follow us around the yard in a little line. Make way for ducklings!

We've been busy, busy, busy planting and getting the yard ready for the wedding. It's only 6 weeks away!! Lots of preparations being made. It's such a beautiful time of year and we are enjoying every minute of it.

It's been a couple weeks now without a catastrophe in our family and home. I cannot tell you how absolutely wonderful it feels. It doesn't feel like a dark cloud is hanging over our heads anymore and I'm feeling more like my old, optimistic, happy go lucky self. We've been praying for a covering of protection from the Lord and He's sent one. I'm asking Him for a season of relief and He's giving us that.

Thank you! Thank you, Jesus!

Blessings,

Laura

A catch up

Sorry about my lack of posts lately. A friend was still very concerned about Blaine since I hadn't posted about his MRI results. Sorry! I honestly wasn't sure anyone was still reading my few and far between posts anymore...especially since they haven't contained any good pictures lately! I will have to remedy that. I know...promises, promises:)

We did see Blaine's neurologist last Friday. He reviewed his MRI and saw nothing out of the ordinary there! Praise God. So why is he having the symptoms? Well, since he his spinal cord had been demylenated (when he was paralyzed), he can have these symptoms now when he's under physical, mental or emotional stress. And he was under a large amount of stress at work for a few weeks, which seems to have brought this on.

The other thing he was having was the headaches. You can see on his MRI that one of the vertebrae in his neck looks different than the rest. It was broken in the accident 5 years ago. The doctor feels that is leading to his headaches so he gave him a medicine to try at nighttime. He said it works miracles in 2/3 of patients and does nothing for the other 1/3. The jury is still out on if it's helping Blaine or not. He thought it was at first...but we'll see.

We were so thankful and relieved that everything looked good on the MRI! There was a concern for MS but the dr. said in all his years of treating MS patients, he has never, ever seen anyone who had as many spots (lesions) in his brain and as much demylenation in his spinal cord as Blaine (when he was paralyzed) go on to have a completely clear MRI later. The lesions just don't disappear like that. So he ruled out MS. We were pretty concerned about that.

With Katie and De's wedding just 7 short weeks away, we find ourselves busy (ok, scrambling) to get preparations done. I wish sometimes that I was one of those people who gets everything done early and then coasts until the end. I. AM. NOT. Invitations WILL get printed and addressed today. We meet with a florist on Monday. I spent 5 hours at the nursery yesterday picking out trees and shrubs for the yard and now we have some planting to do:) She had a beautiful shower last weekend and another coming in 3 more weeks. Her dress is being altered. So things are being done...just seems there is still a lot to do. They are waiting to hear on an offer they made on a short sale town home right here in our town...only 10 minutes away.

Blake is now the proud owner of a Boxer named Reno. He is 15 months old and his owner had health problems and was unable to keep him. He's a great dog and Blake is loving his new companion. Blake is also continuing to make improvements on his home. He and one of his roommates installed some can lights and a drop ceiling in the basement bedroom. Blake is learning how to patch walls and fix whatever needs fixing. In one week, he will have completed his Junior year at the U of M and will begin summer vacation. We're so proud of him!

Aliya is doing well in school, although she "hates" Health class. She has officially added Social Studies (Geography) to her course study so the grade she gets in there will be permanent. So far, she has a B. She's got a couple friends from school who she enjoys spending time with. This morning, she is at the zoo with one of the girls' family. She is continuing to feel at home here with us and has a comfortable fit in the family, I think. Things will change when Katie moves out, which I am *hoping* will improve their relationship, which is currently like walking on eggshells when they're in the same room. However, Aliya ADORES her dad, does everything with him and asks where he is several times every day. I just purchased her a ticket to go visit her friend, Anaya (who she was with in the orphanage in Ethiopia). She is visiting her in Florida for a week this summer and although she is scared to death to fly alone, the reward is worth it!

Mihiretu is now in baseball for the first time. He LOVES it! What sport doesn't this kid love? It turns out, he is also a natural at baseball. My prediction...this kid will get into college because of sports. The only problem is, which one? He continues to be one of the bigger kids in his class...80 pounds in 2nd grade and has NO fear. Mihiretu was tested recently due to his struggle with reading and was found to have a med. to high IQ but has some sort of disability when it comes to reading fluency and writing expressed thought. So he will get special help in school for this, which we are thankful for. It is a very real possibility that this was caused from the malnutrition that he suffered until he was 4. Sad.

Misganaw is still our little clown and big talker. He's recently been telling me about the Giant Pacific Octopus and how it has "jet REpulsion". He rides his bike up and down the driveway and yells, "Jet REpulsion...out of the side of my bike!!!!!" This makes him go very fast:) I so often smile a little smile at God when I think of how in my kind of "older years" gave us such a precious bundle of joy. He really brings such delight and enthusiasm to our family. He is a great way to end a great string of kids:)

As you can see...we have an overabundance of things to be thankful for!!

Love,

Laura