September so far....

This month has been a very musical month! Over the Labor Day weekend we flew out west to see Sara. We made a visit to her new school and checked out her new town. It's all great and we are very happy with her school and trainers and think that she has really found the perfect fit. She is in dryland training right now and I know she can not wait for the snow so she can get out there and race! After a couple of days we jumped in the rental and drove over to Aspen to stay with our dear friends Cindy, Kirk and Emily, they where gracious enough to put us up for a few nights! We stayed in Snowmass and our trip fell on the same weekend as the Aspen/Snowmass jazz festival. We got to see Michal Franti, Elvis Costello and the Black Eyed Peas as well as others, what fun! We even had beautiful weather, another great trip out west and we hope to be back soon.

We came home and Ben had his first week of school. He's excited to be a senior and we continue to fill out paperwork for collages. But my wonderful friend Pamela has access to concert tickets in Chicago and she knows that U2 is my favorite band so last spring she got tickets for the first night of the North American tour in Chicago at Solider field!!!! So on Sat. Bob, Ben and I drove down and saw an awesome show with Woody and Pamela. It was so much fun and I can't thank her enough for the tickets. It was a great show, best one yet!

As if this hasn't already been an exciting month it's finally the third week in September which means this Friday we should be hearing from the AAC! We haven't heard anything else so I don't really know what to expect but when I find out I'll be sure to let you all know.

Happy 13th Birthday

Today Marjada turns 13! We hope and pray that this will be her last birthday without us. Hope for the World made good and sent an employee out to where the kids are staying to take a few photo's for us. I love her new short haircut and can't believe what a young lady she's growing into.

We sent her a necklace but it doesn't look like she's wearing it yet so I don't know if she has it our not. Hopefully it made it over to Albania safely.

So here's our youngest, my goodness we have three teenagers!

Monthly Update

Well I haven't posted in a month, but really there isn't any news with the adoption. Most of Albania takes August off for Holiday and that includes the AAC, as well as Bethany. But Marjada's 13th birthday is on Monday and we made sure though Hope for the World that she will have a party. We have asked them to take some pictures so I hope to have those next week. We continue to make sure that all our paperwork is in order so when they say pack your bags we are ready. Of course we have a few things that expire in October the month they feel we could be traveling! So I am getting those things updated now, or at least trying to.

Meanwhile life goes on and summer is coming to an end. Ben is already swimming getting ready to break a few records this year (fingers crossed). He's also looking forward to starting his Senior year and has already started applying to collages. Sara was excepted to a ski school out in Colorado and had her first day last week. She says she is going to try it for a year and make up her mind about doing all four years after that. We are so proud of her and are looking forward to extra trips out west this year to visit.

I have received many e-mails about out sweet little Lucky dog. So a quick update on him. We ended up stopping the chemo four weeks early. We just could not see him that sick anymore. The great news is that he's doing wonderful, he's playful and healthy and we are going to enjoy this added time with him. The doctors don't really know how much time that is but feel that it could be years. And that sounds good to us!

Spending Time With Friends

Last week we took a boat trip up and around Northern Michigan with some friends of ours. We love spending time on our boat and being able to do it with friends is such a blessing. We took off from Portage Lake and spent a night on the hook at South Manitou Island then headed over to Leland, MI and ending up in Charlevoix MI for the Venetian Festival. We had a great time even if it was a bit cold for July. We are back home now for Grand Haven Coast Guard Festival, did I mention it's been a busy summer :)

On the adoption front things look good. We heard news of some new pictures headed our way, and it seems that the AAC has told Bethany that they will be assigning Marjada to us at the end of September. Marjada has been staying in a coastal town since mid-July and will not return until the end of August. They take all the kids and staff every summer because of the very hot weather, this makes it even harder for communication to happen so we have been told not to plan on any updates until September. We are just happy that things seem to be going smoothly.



Our friends in front of the Manitou Light.

Nico's first jump off of Sola Gratia! There will be no stopping him now!

A huge dune we hiked up, bottom right on the shore is our dingy!

Ship wreak, now home to thousand's of birds.

On our way up we found ourselves in the middle of the Chicago to Mackinaw sail-boat race, poor guys had no wind that day.

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.