New Blog - hosting an orphan

I started a new blog last night for John's journey here and the happenings while he is here.
The link is in my blog list called Janjans Journey to America.

Follow along if you would like!

Swim conference done

Saturday was the final swim meet of the season. Conference. Only the top two times of each even participated. Kaci in the 9-10 group had one of the times in 5 events. Kali in the 13-14 group had one event. She had a good year and did her best. The heat was such a killer though.

Not sure of the results completely, but I do know that Kaci was in 8th or better out of 16 in all her events.

Kali's event, one person on the relay team was able to get them disqualified but touching in the wrong spot when she finished. What a disappointment. But as the girls say "there is always next year"!

No pics. I am a bad mom. forgot my camera at home. Too hot to carry it around anyway.

Summer is HOT! and a vistor is coming

So far July has been HOT! Temps in the 90's with heat index as high as 110!!! The humidity has been nearly unbearable!

Swim conference is tomorrow! The last swim meet of the summer season. Next week Band Camp starts! No rest for Kali.

Kole has been practicing hard for Football season. He is doing very good! I am so proud of him

Then in 12 days we meet John Robinson, a 10 year old boy from the Phillipines. We hope to find him a forever family! Whether it is us or another family. We will see.

After he arrives I will post a picture of him with the kids! We are very excited to have John staying with us for 3 weeks. I know his name doesn't sound like the phillipines, but he is.

We have been through training, fingerprinting, forms, homestudies all sorts of stuff to bring him into our home for this short time.

Happy Birthday to Kali! July 17

Kali turned 14 this year. Hard to believe... I had heard it is just a blink of an eye and they are grown up. It really seems like it has been just a blink of an eye.. We celebrated by letting Kali have some of her besties over for swimming cake and ice cream... Next year I think it will be swimming and snack foods.

Here are just a few pics from her big day!

The fun just never ends!!!

Swim team is almost over for the summer.. two more weeks... Football starts in another week and a half.. band camp starts at the end of the month...

Then in August... register for school, high school swim team practice starts, and we will be welcoming an orphan from the Phillipines into our home for 3 weeks in hopes of finding him a forever family. John is 9 or 10 or maybe even 10 or 11. Not really sure. No birthdate was given to him. Anyway.. We received a call last week, on a Saturday morning to find out if we would be willing to get our foster licensing paperwork done ASAP. We took one look at his file and said yes we would host him. So while getting our paperwork done for the licensing we have decided to replace the hallway flooring, finish building a shed, shampoo carpets and try to clean up the driveway. ha ha ha along with the rest of our summer fun! Hopefully after school starts, we can replace the carpet in Kole's room with parquet flooring too. One room at a time.

We have just one step to complete in the licensing process and that is our physicals next week.

Then it is wait and see what happens. I don't see how we could possibly be a risk for this child unless they are afraid of him having way too much fun and things to do. Kole is so excited to have a foster brother. The girls think John is adorable. So maybe, just maybe things went crazy with the China adoption part for just this reason, that someone else was going to need us more.

The best treat of all is that at least two of Boyd's brothers are coming to visit today and help with the shed! I think if he had just asked they would have come sooner! We are all so excited to have them visiting.