It has been a very buy weekend for us!  I say that like that is unusual.  Yesterday we had an unique Saturday in that we had no baseball or softball games or practices.  Score!  We were planning on taking a short camping trip to get the new girls used to trailer living, but it has rained so much that there was no real way for me to get the trailer out without getting it and our van stuck and requiring someone with more power than I have to pull me out.  And then, I would have made huge marks in the ground that would have been unsightly.  So, we decided to go with friends to the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB here in Dayton.  If you have ever been to Dayton and have never gone, you are missing out.  It is amazing.  Yesterday they had a special day called “Space Fest.”  Every nerd in Dayton that wasn’t at Hamvention was at Space Fest, including us.

There were lots of Star Wars people walking about, including R/C robots of R2D2, one of which Caleb decided to lean on to take a picture with Brittany.

Everyone else went and talked to the guy that actually made the robot and spent a year of his life accomplishing that goal.  I can think of a few other things I would spend a year doing, but he did do an excellent job.

There were a lot of projects for the kids to do, including building your own Nerf-type rubber-band rocket.

Caleb and Luke showed off their finished product in front of an impressive B-52 bomber!

Luke and Caleb also made little Mars Rover models with index cards and straws, complete with a balloon for air powered movement.

For those children too old to make stuff, there were TV screens with various movies about space playing, so that occupied them for a little while.  Doesn’t seem to matter what is actually ON the television.  Teenagers will always stop and watch for awhile.

There was a lot of walking, and therefore shoelaces that needed to be tied.  Jessie kicked into “family” mode and helped Luke with one of his since his hands were full.  So nice to see that servant attitude of hers starting to come out!

While Kelly stood in line with some of the younger kids, I took Max and the rest of the girls over to the Space Shuttle exhibit, which allowed them to try their hands at various simulations.  The first had them try and land a model airplane on an aircraft carrier and hit one of two retaining bands across the back of the carrier deck.  Ali went first, and then Riley gave it a try.  With a little practice, they were both able to land the plane successfully!

It took a little convincing, and positioning, to get Leah to give it a shot, but she, too, had a successful landing!

Riley also tried out a flight simulator.

And Jessie looked at a promising career as an air traffic controller!

They had a space suit on display that you could walk up into, but I could only talk Ali and Max into actually doing it…

We went back to join the rest of the group that was working on building model Estes rockets that you could take out later in the day and fire off at a launch pad that had been set up outside.  We had three pretty good sized families there, so we took up a LOT of room!

Kelly worked with the little guys until I got back and started to help out.

Nice makeup, lady.

Brittany seemed more interested in socializing than in building, but that really isn’t unusual, is it?

We finally had some finished products that we could show off with our friends!

Nick didn’t build a model, but was there to provide comic relief and bother his sisters.

Believe it or not, Jessie actually ASKED me to take this picture in front of a B-1 bomber.  Who am I to argue??  (You can’t really see it because … well … it is stealth…)

Caleb took a turn controlling a R/C rover that was available for the kids to try out.

And then he and Max were the only two people in our party to successfully land the Space Shuttle in a simulator.

In another area, the kids built little air powered rockets out of straws and used an air launcher to land it in a bucket 15 feet away.  It took a few tries, but I think everyone was successful and ended up with a small prize.

The fun of going with friends is that our friends tend to be very animated!

On our way out to launch our Estes rockets, we ran across Darth Vader and a few of his friends.  Several of the kids wanted their picture taken with these imposing figures!

Sadly, after Ali snuggled up with the dark lord, she asked, “Who is Darth Vader?”  **sigh**

On our way out to the launch pad there was a HUGE space shuttle slide and several of the kids decided to take a run at it, including one “older” child (purse and all).

 

At the rocket launching pad, several volunteers helped by loading the engines in the rockets that the kids had built.

Then on to the eight launching pads that they had set up ready to go!

A launch commander went down the line launching each rocket in order.

This is the view if you are NOT watching the rockets shooting into the sky!

The hardest part was finding your rocket once it landed in the tall, wet grass surrounding the launch pad.

In the end, all rockets were found and in reasonably good condition!

We ended the trip as you should end any successful outing … on a high note:

Today was Graduation Sunday at church.  All of our graduating seniors stood in front of the church and talked about their plans.  Jake got up and talked about attending Cedarville University, taking part in ROTC while there, and his plans to join the Army upon graduation from college.

Our pastor then had a few words of encouragement along with a book that he gave to each of the students.

It is hard to believe that we will have our second child in college this fall.  Where in the world does the time go?

Tonight we went for a walk with 2/3 of the children, which, Kelly pointed out, is still a LOT of children!  So many of these girls from China seem to have lost some of their childhood.   The orphanage, by necessity, enlists their help from an early age in managing the needs of the orphanage and taking care of children younger than they.  Riley seems to have been the most affected, always willing and able to help out, always asking what can be done, but often times not always enjoying her youth as she should.  As Kelly and I came up the sidewalk tonight, Ali and Riley had run ahead and they were standing at the corner, both of them dancing around and just being silly.  Acting like kids.  Kelly commented about how nice it is to see them starting to enjoy their childhood again.  There are many things that these children benefit from when coming into a loving, adoptive family.  And this is certainly one of them.

Cameron

I know that I have been a little negligent in posting, but I am going to get caught up this weekend!  Last weekend was a busy one, starting with our celebration of Riley’s 13th birthday on Friday, an event at our homeschool COOP on Saturday, and then Mothers Day on Sunday!

Kelly again outdid herself by making rainbow cupcakes for Riley on her birthday.  Her birthday was actually Saturday, but because of plans we already had, we celebrated on Friday.

As we understand that Riley doesn’t really enjoy going out for dinner, we decided to get some wings and eat at home.  We also realize that Riley doesn’t really enjoy getting presents either, but we went ahead and decided to get her six.   It was a rather time consuming and painful ordeal to get her to even attempt to open her presents and I had to agree to minimize my picture taking so that I didn’t add in too much additional stress!

Riley loves Nick, but even he had difficulty getting her to participate much in the opening process.

In the end, we got everything opened and I believe that she enjoyed her gifts.  Some of them were even ones that she secretly told the other girls she wanted, but when it came down to having all the attention placed upon her it was a little too much.

If presents were not bad enough, then we had to get her to blow out the candle on her cupcakes.

That required assistance from Brittany and, in the end, was completed so quickly that I was barely able to snap a picture!

She, and we, survived and had a very nice evening!

The following night we had an end-of-year performance at our homeschool COOP.  It was an opportunity for some of the kids to show what they had learned over the last several months.  The little ones enjoyed playing some musical selections on their recorders for us, but I just could not get a great shot of Caleb without the music stand!

Kelly did take a picture of Caleb playing for her at the dinner table the other night, so I will include that here!

Later, Brittany did a really nice job with a dance routine/musical skit with several other girls within the group.

She really is turning into a beautiful young lady.

Sunday brought around Mothers Day, and if anyone should be celebrated, it would be Kelly!  We started the day with a round of presents before church, which included hugs for Ali…

… and presents wrapped up in love in both English and Mandarin.

It wouldn’t be complete without a picture of mom with all her kids.  All her kids except Zachary, that is.

And a picture of the two of us together.

Zach is in Tanzania on a missions trip with the Man Team.  They are doing construction projects for different groups, including a pastor.  He was supposed to be working on a road project, but apparently someone was killed by a tiger, so that was put on hold!  He will be gone until June and we miss not seeing him much this summer.

After church, we came home and relaxed for awhile and then went to Kelly’s sister’s house for a pool party!  It was the first time that the new girls had 1) ever been in a bathing suit in public and 2) ever been in a swimming pool!  They began by sitting on the side of the pool just trying to get comfortable with the entire prospect.

Jessie was the most brave by actually venturing into the pool first.

Ultimately, Leah also came in and enjoyed spending some quality time with Ali!

And she even allowed me to float her around in a life jacket.

In the end, Jessie was the most brave and ventured furthest in, most of the time with me.

Riley told Kelly later that NEXT time she will certainly get in.  We will have to see if that happens.

It was a really nice weekend and we had a lot of fun together as a family.  Jessie, Riley, and Leah continue to enjoy being a part of this family and bonding with their sisters and brothers.  Here is a shot of four of the girls enjoying time together on the swing.

That is pretty sweet!

For those of you who have not heard, we are going back to adopt another precious little girl next year.  We will be calling her Ashley and we look forward to see how she blossoms as quickly as all the other kids have when surrounded by the love and affection of a large family.

At some point I will change this blog into one about her?  Not sure exactly how I am going to do that yet.  I certainly don’t want people to follow two blogs!  Stay tuned.

Tomorrow I will post another blog!  Two in one weekend!  How lucky are you?

Cameron