Hello! It has been a long time since I've posted anything because we have been enjoying SUMMER VACATION!!!! YAY!! It is so great to have the kids off school, stay up late and get up late! So, here are a few happenings in pictures.

My cousin (she feels more like a niece to me!) Lexi graduated from 8th grade! My, time flies! She looked so cute and older on her grad night! Between her and her older bro, Adam, teenagers do not look so scary. They are nice kids! Welcome to High School Lex!

Andy had a Lifesong event in Milwaukee, WI and we all went with him since school was out. The folks hosting the event said that we could stay at their 'lake cottage.' I was expecting a little, quaint place, but we stayed in the BEAUTIMOUS house for a night! What a treat!




Haley and Caleb swimming in the lake.

Excited!!!

Hope loves the water! She has no fear - thus the life jacket on at all times!

After Milwaukee, we traveled on to Minneapolis, MN for a short vacation and to meet up with our travel group from Ethiopia. One year ago in May, we were with these great folks in ET. It was so fun to see them again and how the kids have grown in a year.



We all ate at an Ethiopian restaurant in MN. Here some of the restaurant owners/waitresses.

Ethiopian food - a vegetable platter with the famous injera. Injera is the bread on the plate. You tear it off and scoop up your food with it.

Dora wat (chicken dish)

Hope chowed on the Ethiopian food, the other kids had pop and then McD's hamburgers :-)

Cute JT or Tesseme as we called him in Ethiopia.

Hope's roommate, Grace. They were a few cribs apart in the orphanage. She is a doll!

Left to right - Amy, Wendy and Erin. Amy is a social worker with our adoption agency and she traveled with us to Ethiopia. She is adopted herself from Guatemala. Wendy & Erin are JT's mom and sister.

At the Mall of America!

We did not get Hope a sucker (trying to save some $) and we thought she would not notice. We were wrong! The other kids all shared with her - what a mess!

Trav enjoyed racing speedboats.

Haley and Hope browsing the American Girl Doll store. Hope loves dolls. She is kissing hers.

We went to a MN Twins game.

A fun vacation made for some tired kids!

We TRIED to get a picture of Hope, JT and Grace all together - not easy!

At the end of the trip, we met up with the group we adopted with from Korea! It was a treat to see their kids 4 years later. Here are the boys: (l-r) Miles, Ben and Caleb. A sweet little girl named Joanna was also adopted with this group, but she was a little camera shy so I did not get a good picture of her. The last time we saw this crew was in Korea and these kiddos were less than a year old.

A cute pic to end this post!