Boat Trip

Wow! Summer is flying by. We had both kids at the same time so we decided the best way to keep it that way was to trap them on the boat! :) So for the fourth we loaded them up and set across Lake Michigan to Washington Island WI. Sara took along two of her girlfriends so it was odd for me to be in the majority rather than the usual minority. The day we left it was cold and cloudy but by the time we hit the middle of the lake we could see the blue skies and we ended up with beautiful weather for the entire weekend. How great to enjoy it with both Ben and Sara!

Just underway and headed for the blue skies!


Rope swinging!

Washington Island, population 700.

The girls diving on a shipwreck, the water was very cold last weekend. I stayed in the dingy.

This is Rock Island a little island right next to Washington Island we took a dingy ride over to it, beautiful.

We stayed on anchor in this spot the whole weekend, nice and relaxing.

SUMMER

Summer is here! Ben had his last day of school on Friday, took the SAT on Saturday and left for camp on Sunday! What a weekend. This year’s camp is in Florida and he has been looking forward to it for years. Its part of the Sea Cadet's program that he is in and they only took twelve kids this year and Ben was one of them. He's training with the Navy's Special Forces and I'm sure he will love every minute of it!

Sara leaves for her camp in about a week and she's just as excited for hers this year. What else but skiing, she will be training for two weeks out in Oregon at Mt. Hood. And who thought summer was for relaxing?

I'm putting the final touches on the house that we are hopefully flipping this summer and then getting our cottage (aka the boat) ready. We had work done on the boat this past year so we just had it put in the water last week. Our faithful Capt. Niko even took the last day off school to make sure everything went well! We hope to be taking her up north this weekend.

Capt. Niko making sure Sola Gratia has a successful launch. Well Done!

It was a big week for boats last week we added another vessel to our White Lake Dock and Dredge fleet! Always exciting!

Capt. Bob and Capt George.

Capt. George being towed to her new home!

On the adoption front we continue to wait out the six months, only three more to go! I called HFTW to let them know how great it was to see Marjada on their web site video. Cherie told me that they had a newer one and that they had again chosen Marjada to speak. It's from last summer's mission trip. She sent it to me and sure enough a few minutes into the video and there she is, it's great. She's only in it for a minute or two but it was so sweet to see her.

HFTW will be taking another mission trip this September I pray that it will be the last time they see Marjada without a family. Wouldn't it be great if she was assigned to us by then, then she could tell Roger and Cherie all about us!

The small things...

The other day I was poking around the Hope for the World website. When you adopt a child you miss so much of their past and wanting to fill that in is so important, even more so for the child than for yourselves. I was hoping that since HFTW has been working in Marjada's orphanage for so long that perhaps I would see her in a picture or two. Wishful thinking I know but still... So imagine the joy when I clicked on the video and within the first three minutes I see her! Yeah it was great. I'd have to guess that the video is three or four years old, but that's fine, she's the first child to hug one of the visiting Americans, she's wearing blue jeans with little flowers and a blue and white t-shirt, I knew it was her the minute I saw her! Then she says "welcome to our country" and one last appearance where she says "He knows my name", it's such a treasure.

Here's the link: http://www.hopefortheworldalbania.com/video/

We don't really have any new news. We just have to wait. I have asked Bethany if we could send a gift for her Birthday, they said that we can but it has to be very small something that will fit into an envelope and nothing to suggest of the upcoming adoption. So we are thinking a bracelet. Bob wants to send a White Lake Dock and Dredge t-shirt! Subtle I know :)

I've had a few questions on how Lucky is doing so I'll post that news as well. All in all he's doing well. He had another treatment yesterday and the Dr. says his numbers where all in the normal range. Such great news! But we have had a few hard weeks, depending on which medication he receives that week. Last week was tough on him, he had two nights and days of nausea (I love my Little Green Carpet Machine). Other than being completely whipped when he gets home, he's doing good this week. Only five more treatment's to go.

My mom made this fleece blanket a few Christmas's ago and Lucky always cuddles in/on it. As soon as we got home yesterday I took it out for him. Poor little guy.

It's been cold here but the afterglow last night was so pretty I thought I'd share.

HFTW is the best!

I'm going to take a moment to explain a few things. I admit that I haven't been too great at explaining some things so here goes!

We are using Bethany Christian Services to facilitate our adoption. The country of Albania will not allow for an independent adoption, and Bethany is one of only two agencies that they allow at all.

Hope for the World -Albania is an organization that helps assist widows and orphan's. One of the ways they help is through sponsorships. We first found out about them when we wanted to sponsor Mishel. We are now sponsoring Mariada's English lessons though them. They are really working hard to change lives in Albania. Take a look http://www.hopefortheworldalbania.com/ .

We have asked Bethany to give us as much information and updates on Mariada as they can, unfortunately they have told us that they can't do that until September. But since we are sponsoring Mariada though HFTW they have sent us some pictures and basic info! These little things mean so much to us and we can't thank them enough for it!

Hope for the World has employee's that live and work near Mariada's orphanage. They do all sorts of things one of which is give the weekly Bible studies that Mariada attends. They also have the kids come over to play with their two children. The following pictures were taken at their home. The other little girl is Mariada's friend she is also an orphan.

isn’t she adorable?

They also sent us a list of things they know about Mariada! This is something that we will keep forever. I am going to cut and paste it from the e-mail they sent us, so please excuse the spelling errors. Also they left out what grade she is in but they are finding that out for us. And you will see that the Albanian way of spelling her name is with a j instead of the i we plan to use.

Marjada is 12 years old.
She is in the grade.
She is a good student..... she is really one of the best students in the whole orphanages of Albania.
She loves to be a doctor in the future.
She likes playing soccer.
She playes with a small team.
She has seven years that lives in Shkodra.
She has received Christ and she comes faithfully to Bible classes.
She has lots of friends and she is a very friendly girl.
VEry sweet and loving.
She prays that God will find her a family.
Marjada says. .. I have lots of people that love me ,, in school, workers and educators of the orphanage...but there is nothing like having a family.
I love to have a family,
It will give me lots of joy and piece in my heart.

Isn't that just the best?!

I wanted to share that with all of you.

The Road to Mariada

First off, thank you to all of you who sent such beautiful replies to our post about Mariada, we are truly blessed to have such wonderful friends!

We have had so many questions on what the next steps are to bring Mariada home that I thought I would just post them. Here's what we know, and I can only hope that I have it right. Mariada's abandonment papers where signed by a judge in February, once he/she signed them it put Mariada up for adoption, but only to an Albanian family. After six months she will be placed with Bethany Christian Services and available to be adopted internationally. Bethany has already chosen us and we as you know have gladly said that we would be her family. Her six months is up in August, but like a lot of Europe Albania shuts down for the month and goes on holiday. This includes the Albanian Adoption Committee (AAC). So in September the AAC will meet and formally assign Mariada to us, we will then sign some papers which will be sent to the judge and he/she will set a court date. Bob and I both have to be in the country 10 days prior to the court date. We get to meet Mariada as soon as we get there. The ten day rule is time for us to bond and we will be watched by a social worker that will testify that there is in fact a bond. On the day of court Mariada, Bob and myself will all testify that we want the adoption to take place. God willing the judge will then sign the adoption paperwork. After that Bob will fly home and I will stay with Mariada to get her visa and passport etc. completed ( about 3 weeks). Then Bob will fly back, hopefully with Ben and Sara and we will all come home as a family to all of you! I think that's it, although I'm sure there's one or two things that I have forgotten.

I promise to bring my laptop so you can follow along!

In other Gezon news we had a lovely Mother's day. Bob knows I want a butterfly garden so he brought home a butterfly bush to start it off, and Ben gave me the nicest card that he bought all on his own! What a great kid. We had diner with my Mother and Grandmothers and then went over to visit Mom Gezon in Holland. Tulip time is just ending and it was so beautiful to see all the tulips, what a great year for them.

Lucky is doing well. This was his week off from treatment but I'll post a picture from last week, he came home and headed for his favorite spot in the yard, can't really blame him it was a beautiful warm and sunny day.

It's time

OK we can't keep our secret any longer. We have told some of you so it wasn't a very good secret to begin with but here's the story.

While we where in Albania we where told about a girl whose abandonment papers where just signed. She is 12 turning 13 in Aug. she was in an orphanage north of Tirana and had been living there since about the age of 6. She loves to play soccer and would very much like to be adopted. We wanted very badly to visit but where not permitted and time would not have allowed for it anyway. We came home and talked about it with the kids and of course prayed about it. This was a big change, from a boy to a girl and a 5 year old to a teen! Well about six weeks ago we made up our minds (although it wasn't a surprise to anyone really). We called our SW told her that we wanted to adopt her and to please find out when her six month waiting period would be up. We decided to keep it close until we at least knew that, finally today we found out that if an Albanian family does not adopt her she will be assigned to us in September! We are so very happy to have this news. We are guarding our hearts as much as possible. So as many prayers as you would like to say feel free!

OK so here's what's been happening the last six weeks. We know that she is 12 and turning 13 in Aug. she loves to play soccer and apparently is a pretty good player. She enjoys drawing and gets good grades in school. She was raised primarily by nuns until she was 6 and then placed in a school aged orphanage, that's where she is now. She is a Christian and wants to be adopted by a Christian family. In her assessment it states that she would enjoy an active family so we know she will fit right in! We have been paying anonymously for her to have English lessons and she enjoys them very much. She will not know about us until Sept. that's when we can sign the papers and the Judge will set a court date. Hopefully we would travel shortly after that and be home by Christmas.



So here she is! We are working on getting more information and more pictures.

The Last Few Weeks

What a busy last few weeks it has been. First Sara was down with a girlfriend for Spring Break! What fun we had, we went shopping had our nails done, and hung out. We LOVE it when Sara's here and having her friend was wonderful. Can't wait until summer when we will get to see her more often.

Once Sara had to go back up north Ben's Spring Break started! He wanted to hang with his friends for most of it but we did take a road trip down/over to Pittsburgh PA to take a campus tour of Carnegie Mellon University, Ben's second choice (so far) for colleges. It's CRAZY that Ben is this old time goes by so quickly, it seems like yesterday that I was meeting Ben and he was turning eight, now I'm taking him to look at Universities. But I must say he is a wonderful young man and we are so proud of him. I'm sorry to say that I forgot my camera on this trip so I don't have any pictures of CMU's beautiful campus. Bob and I are still hoping for a school a little more south :) we've got a little bit of time to work on him.

In other news the weather has been great and we have been enjoying walks on the beach, oh how we love summer. Today we did some spring cleaning, I put Lucky's bed outside to air out and he thought that was a fine idea, little goof!

That's it for now, hope this finds you all happy and healthy!