Livin' the Hotel Life

Upon our arrival in Germany, we checked into the Kelley Hotel.  Our reservation was for up to 90 days, but we were determined to be out of there WAY before then!  We wound up living in the hotel for 15 long days.  Once we were inprocessed enough to actually look at houses, that's all we did...all day EVERY day!!  We saw LOTS of houses...a few that definitely weren't for us, some that COULD have been for us, and ONE that totally WAS for us!  We saw houses that were out in the middle of corn fields; houses that had 32 steps up to the house from the street; houses that were beautiful but WAY outside of town; houses that reeked of cigarette smoke; and even one house where our neighbors would have been from Arkansas!!  But through it all, we just kept looking for that feeling of being right...maybe not the perfect house, but the house that was perfect for us!

Hotel living was absolutely not for us!  Having all 5 of us in about 400 sq feet, 24 hours a day, with no room to move around or escape each other was tiring, to say the least.  We had one queen size bed, a full size pullout couch, and a rollaway bed.  Every inch of floor space was covered!!  Luckily when we got here, the weather was very warm, and there was big playground outside the hotel...so the kids and I spent quite a bit of time out there....everyday! : )  It was truly a lifesaver!!

He's a happy boy!!

Our temporary Germany home!

This is the bedroom...with our bed and little R's rollaway...every inch was covered in beds!

A happy moment together on the couch...

A didn't believe she was a bed hog...proof is in the picture!  We had to get a 2nd rollaway bed for poor T...so she slept in the dining room the rest of the time! 

We were sooooo happy when we found our house!!  And even though we have loaner furniture and we are sleeping on airbeds, it is so much better than the hotel!!  We absolutely can't wait to get our household goods and really turn this into our home!!

FUN before we left OKC!!!

The weeks leading up to our move were crazy hectic!!  But we managed to fit some fun in too!!

Wildfire near our house on the day R was coming home from VA.  Pretty scary!!

Storm came through one night before we left...extremely high winds...we had numerous trees down.

One of the trees that were blown down in the storm.  BTW...none of the above pictures really qualifies as "fun"!

The beginning of a VERY long stretch of eating out constantly....

MiMi & PaPa came and helped with the kids while we handled all the cleaning of the house and final preparations for the move.

Anji had run out of things to lay on...poor kitty had to lay on the floor!

Went for one last trolley  (AKA "charlie") ride in Bricktown...although this day they were using buses instead of the normal trolleys...a little disappointing for little R, but fun nonetheless

Oklahoma City Thunder!!!!!

What do you do when you get bored staying in a hotel for 6 days?  You play dress-up, of course!! : )

Leaving HOME

We have moved so many times during R's military career that "home" has been many, many different places.  While we have enjoyed some duty stations more than others, we have always been able to create a sense of "home" for our family wherever we were.  "Home" was our safe place, when we felt far from family & friends, and new friends didn't come as quickly as we had hoped.  "Home" was our safe place, when Daddy was gone and in harm's way.  "Home" was where our church was...where we could hear the word of God and be reassured that we were in His hands, no matter what we were going through.  Sometimes "home" was a tiny apartment, where we didn't know a single neighbor; sometimes it was military housing with a wonderful community of people just like us.  Sometimes home was a great house, full of friends, with great neighbors.  Sometimes "home" was a little empty because Daddy was gone, but still full of love and a sense of security.

But in all of our adventures, "home" was in the United States.  Sometimes we were far from family, but we always knew that if we wanted to, we could travel to see them.  Or if we had a family emergency, or a death in the family, we could be there.  That ended for us on August 17th, when we boarded a plane to leave our "home".  The country that R is so proud to serve, where all of our children were born, where WE were born! We flew into a new country, full of new languages, new customs, and a whole new way of life.  I can't say that we were happy about leaving, but we are excited to see what God has in store for us over here in our new "home".  

 Little R was a little unsure...

 T was a lot unsure!

 A tried to hold it together and be strong!

 5-hour layover in Newark...

 Great views of NYC from the airport!

 Very symbolic...Lady Liberty right after takeoff...

 GREAT views of NYC from the air..

 Getting farther away...

 Central Park?  Can't wait to visit someday...

"Home" can no longer be seen...after an 8-hr flight we would land in our new "home".

I'm not sure another country will ever feel like "home", but I am determined to make our house feel like home for our family; a safe place for all of us, in this very different world we are now calling HOME!  In this "home" our little man will start kindergarten, our A will start middle school and become a teenager, our T will graduate high school, and be preparing for college!  All huge milestones for our family, and times we will remember forever!  I don't know what the next four years holds for us in Germany, but I do know that we will leave here very different than we came.  And I hope that Germany is a bit different when we leave too, so we can leave knowing we left our mark somehow!!

My favorite foods of the summer

Since Rai is gone all summer, I have done absolutely NO menu-planning or cooking family meals.  The kids are content with quick foods, and I practically live on Chocolate Mini-Wheats, turkey sandwiches...and these two AMAZING dishes...I am in LOVE with both...and eat them constantly!

Spinach with grilled chicken, strawberries, and sliced almonds...YUM!  And it's pretty, too!

Moroccan couscous with grilled chicken, butternut squash, onion, zucchini and carrots...YUM!!  I make this, and eat on it for a week! : )

Washington, DC!!

R turned 40 in June, and I was able to fly in for the weekend and spend a few days with him to celebrate his birthday!  My parents watched the kids for the 3 days that I was gone, and then another 6 days after I got home!  Thanks MiMi & PaPa!!

I had never been to DC before, so it was a great experience for me!  We spent the whole day Saturday walking to all the monuments...whew!!  We were HOT and TIRED when we were done!  But it was great to see our nation's capitol and all that goes along with it!

We also got to see old friends from Texas, who have just relocated to the DC area.  It was great to see them after 6 years away from each other!!

R and I had a great weekend together, just doing what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it! 

Washington Monument 

Some hot guy next to a HUGE column! : ) 

I was simply amazed by how many people were EVERYWHERE!! 

The White House...not as impressive as you would think...but still amazing!

Security everywhere...on the roof, on the balconies, on the grounds...made me feel unsafe being out there! : ) 

Arlington Cemetary, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier...AMAZING!!  Brought tears to my eyes! 

The Big 4-0...and proud of it!! 

At the airport before I headed home...it was a short visit, but GREAT nonetheless! 

The Prowell family, our sweet, dear friends!! We love these guys!  If I have my way, these will be A's in-laws someday!   This is a plan that has been in the works for many, many years...we just have to get our A and their Jonathan to go along with it! ; )

Pirate & Princess Party!

We got a new Chick-Fil-A on our side of town last year, and they pretty much know us by name now!  R and I went to their premiere night (we felt very special..it was invitation only, and very restricted), and we have been their more regularly than I would like to admit since then.  When I saw that they were having a Pirate & Princess Party, I knew we had to go!  Little R is VERY into pirates right now, and A is still our little princess, so it was the perfect combination!  They had real pirates, and Cinderella was there with a horse-drawn carriage.  It was a free event, and we had a blast!  Just one more reason we LOVE our Chick-Fil-A!!!

 Our pirate and our princess at home before the party.  (This was the ONLY time R would wear the pirate hat!)

 The cupcakes were a big hit!



A was a happy girl! 

Mommy had to try out the pirate patch before R would... 

Cutest pirate ever??  Oh yes, I think so!!!! 

And I just threw this one in for good measure...she just looked so beautiful!!



The question...

When you adopt a child, you know there will come a day when that child will know that they were not born from your body.  You have no idea how or when that day will come, and what questions will be asked that cause you to reveal that information to your child.

From the beginning of our adoption journey, we knew that we would be open with our child about the story of how he came into our family.  And since there is obviously a slight racial difference, we knew it would never be a secret that he was adopted.  But as the years passed, and I have been asked probably 100 times if he is adopted by perfect strangers, he has never noticed or cared that he looks different than the rest of us.

We talk about babies, and when he was a baby, and when the girls were babies...and probably 9 months ago he discovered a picture in my bedroom of me VERY pregnant with A.  We talked about Mommy's big belly, and that baby A was growing inside Mommy's belly.  And for a while he would go to my room, look at the picture, and get this cheesy grin on his face, like he knew a secret.  It was very cute!!  But he hasn't looked at that picture in months...

Yesterday, R was playing Play-Doh at the kitchen table while I was fixing his dinner.  Concentrating on his work, he asked "Mommy, when I was a baby, did I grow in your tummy?"  And there it was...the moment I knew would come...and somehow wasn't ready for...

I walked over to the table and explained to him that he didn't grow in my tummy.  He grew in another Mommy's tummy, and she loved him so much that she wanted the very best for him, and she wanted him to not only have a Mommy, but a great Daddy that could teach him how to grow into a good man.  So she let her baby come to be part of our family.  I told him that God brought that Mommy to us, and brought him into our family in a different way than having him grow in my tummy.

He continued playing with his Play-Doh, not even noticing the tears in my eyes.  Seeing that he was done with the conversation, and that was enough information for him at that moment, I went back to preparing his dinner.  A few minutes later he looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said "I love you, Mommy."   And my heart melted!!  What a story we have in this little guy!!  And so much more story to tell him in the future!  It truly is a God story!!

While I was shocked at the moment that he asked his question, I can't wait for more questions from him as he becomes more aware.  We have such a story to tell him.  He was loved from the beginning...by the woman who carried him for 9 months...and then by us the moment we met him...and he is loved still...by the woman who carried him for 9 months, by us, and pretty much everyone else he meets!!

This is the moment I fell in love with this little guy.  This is the first time we met him, after knowing he had been born, but was in the NICU...with no other information...for 24 hours.  Having biological children, I had no idea how I would feel holding a baby in my arms for the first time, knowing he was mine, but without that bond of carrying him for 9 months and delivering him.  I could not have loved him more at that moment...overwhelming love and wanting to protect and comfort him...it was amazing!

A Day at the Zoo!!

We LOVE going to the zoo!!  If I had known how much we would love it, I definitely would have bought a zoo pass...but we get in for half price because they have a great military discount, so it is still an inexpensive day of fun for us!  We ventured out for a day at the zoo not long after R left for the summer...and it was a day of "firsts" in several ways!  We saw parts of the zoo that we never saw the times that R navigated us through, little R rode the carousel without Mommy for the first time ever and experienced cotton candy for the first time!  He also decided on this day of "firsts" that getting his feet wet in the little creek was fun!  He HATES getting his shoes wet any other time, but he splashed in the creek for at least 30 minutes before I had to drag him away, explaining that there was a lot of zoo left to see!  It was a lot of fun for little R, and it is an activity that the girls enjoyed, too!  When your 3 kids range in age from 13 to 3, it's very difficult to find activities that they ALL enjoy!  The zoo is definitely a hit with all of us!!

 Getting their feet wet in the creek!  First time R has EVER willingly gotten his shoes wet!

First taste of cotton candy...MMMMM 

First ride on the carousel without Mommy standing beside him...and yes, I was a little nervous!! 

We were watching the sleeping lions behind these rocks.  R got bored and started climbing on the rocks.  I made a comment as we walked around to the front that the sign probably said "NO CLIMBING"....yep, sure enough! 

R's favorite spot...the gorillas!  And we just happened to run into one of his favorite friends from Mother's Day Out!  They didn't want to part ways!  (On a side note, this is pretty typical of R with boys his age...he is still usually several inches shorter...he's our LITTLE guy with a BIG personality). 

 Mommy and R...and a goose! R decided to "strike a pose"!!



All 4 of us!!  It took 3 tries...I kept cutting R's head off in the picture! 

We had to wait a while for the train, so T kept us entertained with her train token!  Pirate sounds topped off the entertainment! 

This is what R thought of her trick!  He loved it...couldn't stop giggling! 

And this is R's version of the pirate trick...he tried and tried...and finally (somewhat) succeeded!!