Family Adventure Day

The kids had a fall holiday from school on Friday so on Saturday we set off for "Family Adventure Day".

We loaded all 6 bikes on the SUV, packed a picnic lunch, grabbed some donuts and kloaches for breakfast and headed west a couple hours to a state park with some waterfalls that we'd never been to before.  The weather was gorgeous and we had a beautiful day exploring as a family!

Don't ask me how close Little Girl came to a collision with a patch of cacti when the trail went downhill and she took it full speed as I watched in horror from behind!  Thankfully she narrowly missed the cactus and came to a stop safely in some tall grass.  I, however, have several new gray hairs from bike riding over hills with that daredevil little girl who kept telling me as I begged her to slow down, "I'm not controlling my bike, IT is controlling ME!"  But, go figure, her only scraped knee was on the hill I deemed "too steep" and while we were walking our bikes down the hill she fell and got a little scraped up!

We drove home after dark with some very sleepy kids and fun memories of our family adventure day!

Meeting One of Our Sponsored Kids in Ethiopia

While we were in Ethiopia, we got to meet one of our sponsored kids.

Tsion is 12 years old.  Her father has passed away and her mother is sick.  Tsion was sick, too, before an amazing organization called Lelt Foundation stepped in to help her.  Now she is a happy, healthy 12 year old girl who was one of just a few children recently selected to attend a semi-private school because she is so smart!  We give money each month to help provide food, medical care, and education for Tsion, and we exchange letters.

Recently Tsion wrote me "If I had super powers, I would create a medicine to relieve all HIV sufferers all over the world of their pain."  Reading that I just wanted to hug her!

It is important to me that the children we sponsor know how much we care about them and that we not only send money but think of them from America and pray for them.  I want them to know they are loved, by us and by God.  So, it is huge when we get to meet one of our sponsored kids in person.  I think it adds a whole other big dimension to the relationship to get to see each other face to face!  We met one of our sponsored boys in Ethiopia 3 years ago and this trip we were blessed to get to meet Tsion!

Oh, happy day:

Our oldest son, my husband, Tsion, and me:

Family that will never live under the same roof, but family none the less!

It was so wonderful to get to see her, to hug her, learn more about her, and get to tell her how proud we are of her!  She is such a sweet, sweet girl.  It is a privilege to be a part of her life!

What Time Zone Is It?

My lack of much blogging this week is absolutely related to the fact that my body has no idea what time zone it is in.  Since returning from Ethiopia, which is 8 hours ahead of my home time, I have this exhaustion that hits at 8 or 9pm every night, a time that is typically a high-energy time for me as I am a night-owl.  I am also waking up at 5am every day, but since I am not a morning person by nature I really just have no idea what a person is to do at 5am.  Maybe I should just start blogging at 5am!

Nearly the whole time we were in Ethiopia I had no trouble falling asleep at night but I'd wake up around 1am wide awake and not be able to go back to sleep for hours!

But the sleep woes are a small price to pay for what was such an amazing trip!

Walking into a care point in rural Ethiopia to see so many children lined up singing for us is something I will never forget!

Playing soccer with this happy band of giggling kids is one of my favorite memories of the trip:

And this monkey eating an ice cream cone?  Priceless!!

 Although he is a very naughty monkey because he stole that ice cream from a little girl eating outside at a restaurant.  But, the waiter brought her another one.  And the monkey ate that thing just like you or I would, first licking the ice cream on top and then eating the cone -- truly amazing to watch!!   In Ethiopia, monkeys run wild and seem to be like squirrels are to us where we live.  It was just us outsiders that were mesmerized by the monkeys, the locals were like, "So what?  We see them all the time and really they are just pests!"

But, the reason we went to Ethiopia and the reason we'll keep going back and keep giving to reputable organizations helping people in Ethiopia, is illustrated by this:

You don't come face to face with children like that and not leave changed.  In the words of my 11 year old son when asked what he thought about his time with the children in the sites where we hope there will be care points, "It makes me want to help them."

Happy Friday Friends! 

If She Had Superpowers

The 13 year old girl we sponsor in Ethiopia recently wrote us, "If I had super powers, I would create a medicine to relieve all HIV sufferers all over the world of their pain."

Oh, don't you just want to hug her?

She has a beautiful smile and was just accepted into a new elite school program because she is so smart.  AND, God just got the logistics worked out so that we'll get to meet her soon when we travel to Ethiopia!!  I am so excited to be able to hug her and tell her in person how proud we are of her!!

The photos below are from our first trip to Ethiopia 3 years ago when we got to meet Mathews, another of our sponsored children.  Meeting him was such an amazing, surreal experience.  I will never, ever forget it!  Praying everything works out as planned for us to meet Tsion this time!

Best Bag for Mission Trips

I'm packing right now, so travel products are on my mind.  But, it did occur to me to share my favorite bag for packing donations/supplies for mission trips in case it helps anyone else. 

It's this duffel:





The bag is awesome because it holds a ton, but then collapses really flat and small for transporting back home once you've dropped off the donations! 

It's a tough bag.  We bought two in the large size and they have seen us to Ethiopia twice and the Dominican Republic once on mission trips.  And I loaned them to my friend who traveled to Ghana for an adoption and still the bags look new!

And now back to packing . . .

Jeans Shopping With My 11 Year Old Son

I fell into a panic last night that our Ethiopia trip was coming up so soon and I was not ready, so rather than blogging I spent time last night ordering 24 bottles of nail polish, 10 soccer balls, 300 balloons, rocket balloons, bottles of bubbles, and jump ropes.  

What?  Doesn't everyone take 24 bottles of nail polish with them when they travel to Africa?!

We'll be spending time with kids in the different care points so the nail polish is for painting the kids fingernails and all the other stuff is for playing with the kids.  Nothing breaks down language and cultural barriers and allows connection quite like nail polish and rocket balloons!

Oh, and travel toilet paper!  I ordered some travel toilet paper.  You know you are in for an adventure when your packing requires travel toilet paper!

 

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Then this morning I panicked again when I realized that the 11 year old, who is going with us to Ethiopia, had outgrown all his jeans, and jeans are pretty much what he needs to wear every day of our trip.  Guess I should have thought of that little detail sooner, because it has been months since we've worn jeans around here, but really, for none of them to fit, the boy has done some growing!

So, tonight after dinner, the 11 year old got the pleasure of me taking him to Old Navy to do some jeans shopping.  Typically I buy the kids clothes over The Internet, once they ship I have the kids try them on at home, and then I return to the store what doesn't fit.  Therefore, my kids have been totally spoiled and have not spent much time in dressing rooms or hunting for their size at a store.

My son got an education tonight!  He is now very well versed in the different sizes and styles of Old Navy jeans.  You have the 5 different styles - super skinny, skinny, straight, boot-cut, and loose.  Then within each style there are sizes (like 10, 12, etc. that correlate loosely to the child's next age).  AND THEN there is the further break down of each size into slim, regular, and husky!

Needless to say, I had the boy try on about eleventy-million pairs of jeans before we figured out exactly which combination was right for him!  12 regular boot-cut, 14 regular straight, 14 slim boot-cut, 12 slim loose fit, and on and on!

All while I stood outside the dressing room door.  Because he's an 11 year old boy, you don't get to go in there anymore as his mom, which is a little sad.  But, OF COURSE I was right outside the door to his dressing room and he had instructions to come out as soon as he had the jeans on.  I certainly wasn't leaving the judging of acceptable fit up to my son (my daughters, yes, my sons, no)!

So, while I stared at this:

A lady walked by holding her baby boy and I thought, "Just wait, you blink and he'll be trying on jeans with you on the other side of the door!"

Really, my son was good-natured about the whole thing and even suggested some of his own size combinations to try, "Mom, maybe I should try the 12 slim loose fit."  Don't even get us started on the fact that there is such thing as a slim in the loose style or a husky in the skinny style!  

I think it would have been less complicated to become rocket scientists, but we did discover the 11 year old's best size right now is a 12 regular in either the bootcut or straight fit.

My boy reached his personal wall in shopping with his mom when I began laying out various jeans accross the floor in Old Navy so that I could compare colors once we'd definitely decided on the size and style we needed.  "Look, this one is darker.  And this one has the faded parts there along the thigh." I said as he began to twitch and looked around to see if anyone was staring at us.

Then as I dug way into the back of the shelves to find certain colors I deemed best in his size, he began begging me, "Mom, let's just get these!  I like these!"

When I complained that one pair had what I referred to as a "wrinkled fly" and we needed to look for a different pair, I sensed that I was pushing the whole shopping thing a little too far.  I saw the look in my son's eyes that I've seen in my husband's eyes many times over the years.  It is the I-have-to-get-out-of-this-store-right-now! look and I knew then that it was indeed time to go.  I brandished my 20% off coupon and headed to the check-out.  As we left the store with count them THREE pairs of jeans that fit the boy for a total of $36 with tax, I congratulated both of us on a successful jeans shopping expedition!


May your weekend be as merry!  

Tips For An Easier Beach Vacation With kids

We just got back from a beach vacation with our kids and I have some tips that made the travel easier.  We've done this same vacation the past 3 years in a row so we've learned some things.

I laughed when I saw this funny article about a mom on a beach vacation with her family, but it can be true if you are not careful, the "vacation" can turn out to not really be a vacation for the mom (or really both parents)!  We've certainly done trips in the past with 4 kids or even when we had 3 kids where it felt like even more work than being at home and I was exhausted at the end of the trip (yes, I'm talking about you Disney!).

So, here's a quick list of tips that help the beach vacation actually BE a vacation for the parents:

• If you are driving and leaving early in the morning (we left at 4:30am), put the kids to bed the night before in the clothes they will wear on the trip (you'll want them wearing comfortable clothes in the car anyway).  This way you just get them out of bed, have them visit the potty, and then put them straight in the car -- so easy!

• Leave in the wee hours of the morning and the kids will be sleepy, disoriented, and most important, quiet for the first couple hours of the trip before the sun comes up!

•  Rent a beach house with a washer and dryer.  I know, wash equals work while on vacation, but it is tons easier than packing enough clothes for your family to survive the week without doing wash and plus it's nice to return home and not have a mountain of vacation laundry to tackle!

• Before you leave home, write up a grocery list of things to buy once you arrive at your destination.  Plan to have easy breakfasts and lunches in the beach house to save cost and hassle of eating out every meal and then splurge on dinners out. 

• I plan for one super easy dinner in, that way if it is raining one evening or we're all too tire or sunburned and don't feel like going out to dinner, there is a meal I can make at the house.  This year I boiled pasta added a container of store-bought pesto sauce and a package of those pre-grilled chicken strips for an easy pasta dinner.

• Eat on paper plates.

• Every year we turn our beach vacation week into junk food week as well.  You know the sugary cereal I say "No" to the other 51 weeks of the year, I allow during the one week at the beach.  Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms -- sure, but just for this week only and nobody let me read the list of ingredients!   Also, things like Twinkies that were staples in my childhood, but my kids have no idea about, we expose them to it during beach vacation week.

• With big families where you don't want everyone drinking after each other (I'm a freak about containing potential cold and stomach virus germs to one member of the family as much as humanly possible; you never know when someone is about to get sick and already contagious before you even know they are sick), label water bottle lids.  My system is to label "Mom", "D" for Dad, and then numbers 1 through 4 for my kids, with 1 being the oldest, 4 the youngest, etc.

• Pack bleach wipes and have kids quickly wipe down bathrooms and empty trash every other day, this way the messes don't pile up.

•  To make the sunscreen application process easier (and when you have 4 kids and need to reapply every 80 minutes, you want anything to make it easier!), we used these Wet Skin Sticks for the kids' faces.  It goes on quick, they don't have to be super dry so it's great for re-applying while they are swimming, and with a stick instead of a liquid you don't have to worry about it getting in their eyes!
 

 

• It's a family vacation, but that doesn't mean you have to spend every single minute together!  Trade off childcare with your husband so you each can go on a bike ride or shopping alone for an hour or two.  And we had rest time nearly every day of our vacation where we came back to the beach house and everyone was expected to rest or read quietly in their bed for 45 minutes to an hour.  That time definitely helps bring some parental peace!

• I pack each person's clothes in one of these packing cubes, that way I am not having to help each child find their clothes and pajamas.  They have their stuff separated in their own cube.

• Really I think the number 1 thing that made the trip so easy this year and a real vacation for me the mom was that we'd done this vacation 2 times already.  I knew the layout of the house, knew the amenities, and how to get everywhere in the little beach town.  We knew how to rent bikes and have them delivered to our rental house.  We knew the restaurants that were good to eat at and even what to order!  Sure, there is something exciting about a new adventure, but with 4 kids there is nothing restful about a new adventure! 

 **** This post contains affiliate links, but I only link to product I own myself and truly love.****

Favorites from our Seaside Vacation

The House.  We've rented this same house for our vacations the past 3 summers.  The kids refer to it as "our beach house".  Ha!  We can dream!

 Beautiful beach with crystal clear water

 Relaxing!

Bodyboarding!  Even I figured out how to ride the waves this year.  Such fun!

We rented a kayak one day.  The boys had their turn first.  I asked my 8 year old daughter if she wanted to ride next and she said, "If nothing bad happens to them, then I'll think about it, but if something bad happens to them then I'm not riding."  Smart girl!

The boys survived so the girls and I took over the kayak.

Watching my kids bury each other in the sand is always fun!

 

Eating dinner at a restaurant and having this view:

Girls in white dresses:

 A pool with no rule banning inflatables like our hometown pool does:

Watching frozen in the outdoor ampitheater

 Sandcastles

Tetherball was a hit with my oldest this year

And last, but not least, walking or riding bikes everywhere for the whole week!

We drove 10 hours to get to Seaside from our home, unloaded at the beachhouse, went to the grocery store to stock up for the week, and then parked our car and did not drive again for a full week!  We were able to walk to the beach and pool and restaurants and shops.  It was such a great break from our regular lives where we are always running around in the car mulitiple times each day!

Our Favorite Family Vacation Destination

We just got back from a week in Seaside, Florida, our favorite family vacation spot!

We've rented the same beach house for 3 years in a row now and honestly this year we thought might be our last as we expected to be ready for a new destination next year, but we had THE BEST WEEK and now we all want to go back.  Who needs some place new?  Seaside is pretty near perfect!

More details on the trip to come, including some tricks I've learned about traveling with 4 kids and still being able to enjoy the trip myself.  For now, though, re-entry into the real world is tough and ALL THE THINGS that I must now get caught up on leave little time for blogging.

Keeping a Blog Comes In Handy Sometimes

I have seen people who are super organized.  I just met a woman this week who kept a paper log of every wet and dirty diaper her infant had for the first two months (AND it was her SECOND child -- NO WAY!  P.S.: Don't ask how this fun fact came up in conversation.)  Then there are people who keep detailed records of every doctor's appointment they or their children have.

I am not one of those people.

I think I made it about 5 days of recording every wet and dirty diaper for my FIRST baby.  Then by my 2nd baby I couldn't even keep track for the 2 days I was in the hospital after she was born, the nurses would come by and ask and my husband and I would make up answers so we didn't seem like bad parents, but honestly we'd forgotten to record a diaper in the middle of the night!

So it should come as no surprise that when I was on the phone today with the travel medicine clinic regarding our upcoming trip to Ethiopia, I didn't have a record of the date we had our last round of Ethiopia travel vaccinations!

But, WAIT!  HOLD UP! 

Didn't I blog about that?

A quick 5 second search of the good ole blog revealed the EXACT date of our last travel vaccinations AND how many shots we got -- so handy!!

From September 20, 2010: 



147 million orphans in the world

our family's mission?

to make it 147 million MINUS ONE!

1 Day off school on Friday

1 Appointment at the Travel Medicine Clinic

15 shots between the 4 of us

the 3 year old will not be going to Ethiopia (so no shots for him)

20 hours on an airplane with him would = nightmare for all involved!

5 shots for my husband + an oral typhoid vaccine taken at home

5 shots for me + an oral typhoid vaccine taken at home

3 shots for my 7 year old

2 shots for my 5 year old

0 days the kids were in pain after the shots

2 days my husband and I needed Tylenol to even remotely be able to lift either arm!

1 little girl in Ethiopia we have never met, but still know she's way more than worth it!!! We don't know when, but we're coming, Baby!


**Updated:  That Little Girl in Ethiopia is now home and has been for well over 2 years and she IS way more than worth it!

Where in the World?

In the past few weeks we've been firming up plans for our summer mission trip.

We went to the Dominican Republic last year with our two oldest children.  

Where will we go this year?

I can tell you, I am over the moon excited about this trip!

There is no place else I'd rather go!! 

Malaria meds will be required.

Only our oldest child will go with us this time as this place will be our most remote trip yet.

We've been to this particular country before, but never the southern region of it.

This country?  Holds a huge piece of my heart!

 More to come on why we are going and what we'll be doing there.

Our L.A. Trip - The Outtakes

In the airport on our way to L.A. last week, the kids were so entertained by the moving sidewalks that I joked, "No need to go to Disneyland now, this is all the excitement we need!" 

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In perhaps the epitome of my frugal tendencies, I may or may not have had my daughters bring the stuffed Mickey and Pluto we already had at home with us on the trip, to ward off them asking to buy more stuffed Plutos and Mickeys in Disneyland!

Instead we ended up with a bow and arrow set from Brave (the 8 year old's choice) and a Minnie Mouse set that included a little Minnie and various outfits you can dress her in (the 5 year old's choic).  But, I was successful in limiting the kids to the rule of "We will spend $25 on each of you for souvenirs on this trip, so choose wisely!"  The $25 part worked out, but not sure about the wisely, the boys came home with action figures and realistic toy swords.  I didn't realize we were bringing back an arsenal of weapons with the 2 swords and the bow and arrow set until I was packing the luggage for the flight home -- "Hmmm, maybe this stuff needs to go in the checked bags!"

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Do you know what happens when your husband cannot handle rides that go 'round and 'round in a circle?

You find yourself crammed into one flying elephant with the 2 youngest of your children that need to be accompanied by an adult on the ride.  (That is a picture I took of us with my cell phone, hence the up-close view.)  There was no extra space in that elephant, I tell you!

The 8 year old enjoying an elephant all to herself:

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The weather was gorgeous the whole time we were in California, but the smog in L.A. was terrible and had me happy for where we live even with our rainy days and our muggy days, at least we don't have that kind of smog!!

Please notice the smog in the background of the picture of my kids on Mulholland Dr. and not the sign next to them that clearly reads, "NO parking, stopping, standing any time"

We are rule followers if nothing else!

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Last, the look on my older daughter's face in this picture of my kids with Mickey Mouse cracks me up and reminds me of McKayla Marone's "Not impressed" face at the last summer Olympics.

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Happy Friday! 

L.A. with kids, Our Itinerary

 I'm still fighting re-entry after our California vacation and feeling like I need a vacation to recover from our vacation (I know, 1st world problems!), so I'm not going to go into a lot detail today, but just share an overview of our trip and then later I'll go into more detail on the parks and maybe share some tips for anyone else considering tackling the same trip with several kids.

During our spring break last week we went to L.A. with our 4 kids, ages 11, 8, 6, and 5 years old.  Since becoming a family with 4 kids a little over 2 years ago, we've stuck with car trip vacations, so this was the first time for us to fly with all 4 kids.   Thankfully my husband doesn't have to do much travel for work where he's gone from us overnight, but he did have enough day trips last year to rack up the airline points, so all 6 of our airline tickets were free!

We arrived early enough on day 1 to have a full half-day at Disneyland even after checking in at our hotel.  And somehow after all that the kids still had energy for a late night swim in the hotel pool!

Then, on day 2, we drove about an hour to Legoland.  We debated this many times before our trip, but I'm really glad we ended up doing it.  Our 6 year old is a HUGE Lego fan and that's what put us over the top to making it a priority, but we all had fun at Legoland.  It was much less crowded than Disneyland and therefore a little less stressful!  I actually have more pictures from our Legoland day than Disney because I was too busy during our Disney days to get the camera out much!

  

Day 3 was Disney all day long - like 9am to 10pm!  But we got to do nearly everything we wanted to do.

Then by Day 4 we (and by we, I mean my husband and I) were ready for something different than amusement parks so we drove into downtown L.A. and saw Hollywood and then the beach!  We ate lunch at a open-air restaurant right on Venice beach!  The water was pretty cold for actual swimming, but the kids enjoyed a little sand and surf.

Of course, with 4 kids at the beach in their clothes that you plan to eat lunch in, someone is bound to get really wet!  Notice my 6 year old son on the right in the picture below:

He squatted down just before a wave rushed in and kept insisting he didn't know HOW he got wet!  Day 4 was again capped off with swimming in the hotel pool (do you notice a trend here?).

Then Day 5, after breakfast at our hotel, my husband took the kids to the pool to swim so I could pack up.  We flew back that afternoon.