FAMILY TRADITION

One of our favorite things in the world is our weekly trip to Starbucks. Every Saturday morning, for the six years of our marriage, we have had this weekend ritual. When we were first married, we would sit at the Chestnut Hill Starbucks, watch the young families and dream of having our own someday. Now we are one of those families.

Now we don't really have a chance for deep conversation, but we have a great time! We sit at Starbucks and the whole family draws and colors.... it is something we will cherish for the rest of our lives. The strange little conversations we have; the small table crammed with chocolate milk, colored pencils, and a few stuffed animals and our vanilla lattes.

Jennalee is coloring a picture of herself and a favorite stuffed animal (a Panda named Sarah) floating above the trees via some balloons.

Adeline, with an eye towards the natural sciences, has cornered a hapless beetle with the lid of the pencil sharpener. Variety rules the day on our Starbucks trips.

THE GIRLS

Jennalee.

Adeline.

WAITING FOR LITTLE SISTER

If you feel like you are in the dark about our Ethiopian adoption and have been waiting to hear some news, well, you aren't the only one! We finally just learned a little bit and it's not that great. Here's the deal...

All of our paper work is complete and for months we have simply been waiting to have a child assigned to us (a referral). This is a little mind numbing since it could literally be any day that we find out who this little girl is and when we can go get her. In fact, we are now first on the list both at our adoption agency and at the orphanage in Ethiopia.

BUT... the Ethiopian courts close from July 15th to September 30th and yesterday was the deadline for getting our little daughter-to-be in court before they close for the summer. So we could still find out tomorrow who this little girl is, but she would not have a court date until October, and we would go over there four weeks after that.

At first this is really frustrating. Then we feel guilty for being frustrated because maybe we are just being spoiled Americans that want everything now. And then the reality hits us that there is a little girl in a starving world and we can do nothing about it. It's like we are letting Jennalee or Adeline play in a busy street while we pray for contentment rather than going and grabbing them! But the truth is, God knows this little girl -- even if she is not yet born -- and he loves her more than we do and can care for her better than our American life ever could. So we DO pray for contentment; there really isn't anything else to do.

In the midst of this, we are especially thankful that God has already given us two sweet little girls -- not everyone has that. And we are also thankful for one whole summer with just them; we'll enjoy them in a special way knowing that this is hopefully our last summer as a family of four.

FUNNY

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JAIL BREAK!

We still love Frank. And he is not going back to the pet store, which actually is a real threat at our house. In fact, he is the sweetest dog in the world.

His one sin is that he can scale our privacy fence... yes, our 5-6 ft fence! The other night he got so wound up he hopped over it while I was in the backyard with him. Lee Ann caught his return trip on camera, and we thought we'd better share Frank's athletic achievements with the world before we put up an electric wire that will (hopefully) keep him in our backyard.