The Great Love of the Lord

Yesterday I was reading the Psalms and was so reminded of God's great love for us. Today, I'm going to a baby shower of a friend who is adopting two sweet girls from Ethiopia and was looking through Psalm 107 for an appropriate verse. There were several to choose from and, again, I'm reminded of how much God cares for those in need.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say this- ...those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south...
But he lifted the needy out of their affliction and increased their families like flocks. The upright see and rejoice, but all the wicked shut their mouths. Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and
consider the great love of the LORD. Psalm 107:1-3, 41-43

What a great God we serve! I love that God cares about the needy.

So Proud

For about a year we have supported a ministry called the "Free Wheelchair Mission". Basically, it provides wheelchairs to people in third world countries that cannot get around otherwise. Recently, they sent us a "thank you" book with pictures of the people and stories of how these wheelchairs have changed their lives. Brian has been reading it to Tallinn and his little heart has been so touched by these people. Tallinn decided he wants to buy a wheelchair for someone who doesn't have one. So, we did a bake sale initially to start raising some money. Tallinn made about $20 on his first day (the wheelchairs cost about $50). He's also been telling people at his swim lessons about how he's buying a wheelchair for someone and we're going to do a "mini" bake sale next week at swimming. We are so proud of our sweet son and love his heart of compassion for others.

Trick-or-Treat

It's become a tradition for our family to trick-or-treat with our good friends, the Wilsons. We intentionally choose "non-scary", well-lit homes to not freak our quite fearful children out. (Tallinn even remembered a house from last year that was scary as we set out on our adventure and wasn't sure he was up for it.)

Our sweet little spiderman, with tight buns, abs and arms, in a costume at least a size too small and our little fairy, focused entirely on the end result----CANDY---paired up with Captain Hook and the infamous golf pro, Bodie for a night to remember.

Here are a few of the memories.

11 Friends....10 Years, It's Amazing What Can Happen

We just celebrated our 10-year college reunion from Westmont. While not all of our friends could make it, between the 11 of us it seems an EXPLOSION of children has happened. Tallinn and Addie had lots of fun getting to know all these second generation friends and we loved watching them interact. We all connected in the lobby of the dorm where our friendships originated over 14 years ago.

I am so thankful for these friends and for the blessing of Westmont. What a treat to have remained friends for so long and to see our children now forming friendships.

Here are some fun pictures of the activities.



Tal liked playing with Elizabeth and helping her around campus.


Here is Tallinn praying for our fabulous breakfast prepared by Sarah. She lavished us with quite the spread and welcomed us and the Smith's into her beautiful home. We had a great time!



The girls (minus Christine, Leah & Sandra)





The kids: Gracie, Fiona, Wil, Samuel, Reece, Addie, Tallinn, Vera, Brady, Owen, Elizabeth, Jackson, Ella





This is the good life!

Cardiff Aaron Min

Here is a new picture of our sweet little boy! He turns 6 months on Monday and we are anxious to bring him home. We are really praying that we will have him before the new year, but trust that God will bring him in his perfect time.

In the meantime, we're enjoying this two squirly kids and all the fun things they are up to and saying.

Thursday, they returned to swimming after being off a few months and Tallinn had heard that their teacher broke her hip. She was in the pool when we got there and he was so excited. In the car on the way home he said "Mom, Ginny came back to life. Yeah, Ginny." I couldn't hold back the laughter.

This is the good life.

Hosting International Students

This summer, we had the privilege of hosting some pretty fun students from Spain, Japan and Korea. The kids loved having another family member and we all had fun getting to know these fun girls and the countries they come from. Our last student, China, made us some fabulous Japanese food and quickly learned the ways of "liar's dice...Perudo" and "Yahtzee". She also beat Brian in his first ever Uno loss, or, as they say in Japan "Ich".


China with our family at the zoo

China and Addie at the zoo

China and Tallinn at the Angel's Game

At breakfast with our first student, Almudena, from Spain

Navigating the Truckee

Here is just a taste of the "Roaring Rapids" along the Truckee River, from Tallinn and Addie's perspective. The ducks might just have been the most exciting part for them. We're still new to this blogging thing and hope this doesn't turn out sideways.
During our trip in Tahoe, we did two days of rafting along the Truckee. The first time, we hit a branch or something and had a major hole. Alison had to stop alongside with the kids while Brian ran back to get something to patch the hole. In the meantime, the kids were waiting in the raft, that continued to fill with water and Alison tried to keep it on the side of the river, avoiding the pinches of crawdads along the way. Finally, Brian came back and we'll just say "Thank you Lord" for duct tape as it proved to be the glue that kept our little boat together.

During our second trip down, our little raft, pre-patched with duct tape, got yet another hole and we were taping and re-inflating all along the trip. At the very end, the rapids were even faster due to an upcoming storm and we got out just in time for the first drips to arrive (turns out the storm really didn't come, only sprinkles, but it was exciting). Nonetheless, we all had a great time and learned some lessons on how to patch a raft.