To lighten the mood from my last post and in sticking with the Father’s Day theme of the week, this “Wednesday Funny” has to do with dads (and men in general).

My husband is a member of our local Rotary Club. One week they had a doctor from South America who was visiting and doing a presentation for the meeting. Before the meeting, introductions were being made and the doctor commented on “how many children” one of the other men had. Well at that, someone else said, “Well if you think he has a lot of children, you need to meet Josh!”

So Josh was introduced and it... more

This week is Father’s Day, and as I did for Mother’s Day, I plan on having a post each day leading up until Father’s Day, celebrating dads. I have some good resources for dads and some great articles about dads and adoption.

Personally, I know two of the greatest dads on Earth. My own Dad pretty much raised three kids on his own. He ran his own company and still found the time to drive us to our horse back riding lessons and be at our chorus concerts and any where else we needed him or wanted him to be.

He taught me to stand up for what I believe in, and fight for it when necessary. He taught me that it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks. He taught me not to... more

I wish I had a photo of Yared, a 10-year old boy that we met at the playground in Ethiopia. Our entire trip to Ethiopia was moving and eye-opening and emotional, but meeting our new son aside, two experiences stand out as making the biggest impact on my heart, and Yared is one of them.

We were playing in the park with Ben one morning and several boys came over and joined our soccer game. One introduced himself to me and started showing off his English skills. He was tall and slender and had dark skin and beautiful eyes. His smile showed teeth that had suffered neglect, but was no less radiating. His clothes were worn and ragged and did not really go together. You could see that life... more

Lots of people refer to Wednesday as “hump day”, because it is the middle of the week. You’ve already made it through a long Monday and Tuesday, but the weekend is still looking really far away. So to help you get through “hump day”, I have decided to do “Wednesday Funnies”, where every Wednesday I will share a funny story with you. The funnies I will share will have to do with family life, parenting, children, etc. With nine kids in the house I have plenty of material for my own “Kids Say the Darndest Things” (and some “Adults Say the Darndest Things!”). Sometimes it is so easy... more

My un-photographable this week is not one that should make you cry or leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside, or leave you feeling deep and reflective. Hopefully you’ll get a good laugh. It definitely is a MEMORABLE mental image from our trip to Ethiopia.

Let me preface this by saying I am no wuss. I am not afraid of bugs or mice or creepy crawlies. (Ok, I don’t like snakes, but I don’t think too many people really do.) I can kill a bug while talking on the phone and folding laundry and not think twice about it. My kids think it is really dang funny that Dad is afraid of spiders (Josh really, really hates spiders) and Mom is “the brave one” about bugs.

So, there we are in... more

Happy Memorial Day! I hope many of you are enjoying this un-official kick off to summer. And I sure hope you have nicer weather than we do. As I write this, snow is falling out our windows. Yes, snow. It isn’t really sticking, and it is supposed to be back up in the 60’s and 70’s by the end of the week, but for the moment it is snowing.

We had some fun this weekend and Benjamin experienced another “first”. We went to the big Memorial Day rodeo here in town. Ben was excited by the loud music and all the people (many of which we know), but when he saw the cowboys and the horses and the bulls, his eyes went wide. He couldn’t even sit he was so excited. Finally he looked at me and said,... more

I am admittedly a “mush”. I have been called soft-hearted and a sap. I’m ok with that. I am big on love and happy endings. So in the spirit of my mushy-ness, here are some of my favorite quotes on love. Not so much the love between a man and a woman, but family type love, and love thy neighbor type love.

Here is a quote on “The Essence of Life” that I am very fond of. It is a quote from Gordon B. Hinckley, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is more... more

I wish I had a photograph of the Amish couple that I saw in Nazret, Ethiopia.

Yes, an Amish couple. Josh and I were traveling in a Toyota Rav 4, (built, by the way, to seat four). There were six of us in the vehicle and it was SO hot. Your choices were open the windows and let in a beautiful breeze, but also get pelted like you can’t imagine with sand, dirt and exhaust, or, the equally unpleasant option of rolling up the windows and sweating. We altered back and forth between the two, leaving us hot, sweaty and completely filthy at the end of the day. We had been in the car for hours, and were on our way back to Addis, coming through the town of Nazret. I was looking out the window... more

This week is the last week of the school year for my kids. We’ve been really busy lately with end of the year awards’ assemblies, class programs, Tae Kwon Do performances, field days, parties, etc. The kids have been bringing home large piles of art work and school work and notebooks that I vaguely remember buying and sending off to school with them last August in significantly different condition.

Yes, there is excitement in the air, because summer vacation is almost upon us. I have to say that I like the summer. I like having my kids home. I like being able to be lazy in the... more

I wish I had a photograph of the first minute I saw my Amanda Mee Yeon. Amanda was two years old and was escorted from Korea. After all of the drama and excitement and effort involved with traveling to Vietnam for our daughter Maggie, being able to drive to the airport to “pick up a daughter” was outrageously surreal.

I had been told that while new security measures no longer allowed friends and family to meet planes at their gates, that sometimes an airline would give special permission to an anxious parent waiting for their new child to come off of a flight to get through security and wait at the gate.

We got to the airport with our three sons and one daughter, along with... more