Christy and Gracie

This blog features my two youngest girls. What a blessing they have been in our lives! They enjoyed wearing the missionaries' coats recently.

Happy Halloween

This year at our house we had two Halloween Newbies! Didi and Gracie. Both enjoyed the activities. We carved pumpkins a few days before Halloween. Didi went to at dance as Raggedy Ann at Mutual. Christy was a grandma, Gracie was a Japanese girl, Carrie a Spanish Dancer and Mark was a Broncos fan. Trick or Treating was fun for them also. I asked Didi if she had ever had that much candy before and she said no. Gracie, who is still on her NON CHEW diet since her surgery couldn't get the full effect of eating everything, but she still enjoyed the chocolate that melts pretty well. She can look forward to eating some of the other candy in about a week.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

In recent years, our house has gone from having a majority of boys to a majority of girls. It can be fun. Sarah and Carrie have had some fun with fixing hair, and make up. We had a pretty interesting time the other night. Gracie liked the tofu dish that Didi made a couple months ago, so we were trying to replicate this. Didi wanted to know if we had something to give it some spiciness. I found the above hot sauce, but neglected to say something like "THIS is REALLY REALLY hot and you probably only need a drop or two." Well, she put it in and a while later, I started coughing and by dinner time, I was coughing, Sarah was coughing, Darrell started coughing (he thought it was his cold), but I think the spice somehow got airborne and we just couldn't help coughing. It had way too much spice in it. Gracie tried to wash it off and eat a bit of it. We had to open up some doors and windows to try to get some of it out of the kitchen. It was pretty funny. Didi kept apologizing... Also is a picture above of Gracie and Didi with a paper folded thing Gracie made the other night.

Foreign Exchange Students Galore!

This is Luke in Denmark with our first foreign exchange student Lizzie. Luke just spent some time there visiting Lizzie and her mother.
Another picture with Luke . Too bad I don't have stories to go with these pictures!
Luke and Lizzie again.
This is a picture of our current foreign exchange student Didi. She is shown here with Dino Rossi, who is running for governor of the state of Washington. Of course, I am hoping he is the FUTURE Governor of the State of Washington. We went to a rally last Saturday for him. We also did some phone calling to remind people to vote. Didi has to have 8 hours of political involvement for her Government class at school. Do you know what that means? Suzanne has to have 8 hours of political involvement. This week we also went to a Debate party on the evening of the Presidential Debate and went to a debate between one of our Representatives in the US House of Representatives and his opponent. We have about 2 1/2 hours left to do for Didi's homework.

Luke Visits Danish Dog in Denmark

OK, he is also visiting the people who own the dog. Thanks to Lizzie's mom Vibeke, I have one picture from Europe! Lizzie was our Danish Foreign Exchange student for a few weeks a couple years ago. Her mother also visited us at the time of graduation before Lizzie left. Here is Vibeke's comment: "It is so nice to have Luke here with us. I hope that you one day can come here to. He is so polite and sweet, and as you can see on the picture. Our dog Bella loves him too."

Happy Number 11 to Christy!!

We celebrated Christy's 11th birthday recently. Not only did she get cupcakes taken to her class, but she got this beautifully decorated cake (Hmmm....is that color "seafoam"??) Wouldn't have been my choice, but, I'm not the birthday girl.

Didi wrote her Chinese name on the cake for us.

Sarah's College Graduation

On July 18, we were in Rexburg for Sarah's graduation from BYU-Idaho. We attended one of the ceremonies and then we went out for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. We went with some of her friends and made it quite the party. We were able to have everyone with us except for George and DJ.

Do You Like Chinese Food? We DO!

Our new foreign exchange student, Didi, arrived here on Saturday night. Didi is from Shaanxi province, the city of Xi'an in China. We are really glad to have her here. Carrie and Didi and I went shopping on Tuesday and Carrie asked her if she'd like to cook dinner for us. She agreed and we started looking for the ingredients. Last night, she cooked it for us. I'm not sure what it is called, but it is colorful and tasty!

Our Weekend Trip

We took a trip to visit the girls' doctor last weekend. Afterwards, we visited one of Christy's friends from her orphanage. They were adopted about 5 months apart in 2006. Her friend Jenny has a sister from China also. We went out to Mexican food and spent the night at their house.

Our Friend Sarah's Wedding

On Saturday morning, August 8, we went to the Temple and I got to go to Sarah and Justin's wedding. My Sarah waited outside and surprised her friend Sarah, who didn't know she'd be there. We met Sarah's friend Sarah when my Sarah was not quite 1 and her friend Sarah was 1 year old. They have been friends for a long time. After the wedding breakfast, we left for home. (My Sarah had picked up the EFY girls earlier that morning).

Visiting Grandma and Karen's family

We stopped to visit Grandma (Great-Grandma). Gracie had never met her yet. Then we headed up to Karen's house for one night. Karen and Sarah and I went out to Costa Vida, my first time. It was pretty tasty! We took the kids swimming the next day before Sarah headed to Rexburg and I headed up to Carol's for two nights. Carol and I took our kids to the Art/Music festival for kids by the river, where they got to do a bunch of fun art projects.

Add More Daughters

After visiting at Grandma's, we went and spent the night with Sam and Linda, Erica, Alayna and Sammy. We ate Chinese food. Sarah caught up with us there. She had left Zion's National Monument after deciding to come home. She spent parts of the rest of the trip with us. Linda and Christy, Gracie, and Erica and I also went mini-golfing and played in the arcade and rode go-carts at Trafalga, on Tuesday morning. Then that afternoon I took the girls to the BYU Museum. Mary, who was our foreign exchange student last year met us there and we all went out to dinner at a Chinese Buffet, and the younger girls swam at Mary's apartment pool. We slept at Mary's...the younger girls watched movies that evening and Mary and Sarah and I had a great gab session!

Three Grandmas and a German

On August 2, I left with Carrie and Sarah her friend and Christy, Gracie and Luke. We dropped off Carrie and Sarah in Idaho because they were going to attend EFY there. We drove on to Grandma and Grandpa's in SLC. The next morning, I got up and took Luke to the airport. He flew out to Washington DC and on the Germany a few days later. He will be there as a foreign exchange student till sometime next June. We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa for another night and Christy and Gracie got to visit Temple Square and they also went swimming. You can see that these "elderly ladies" had an enjoyable time...with Grandma's wigs.

Do you have One Dollar?

Love Without Boundaries Foundation has set a goal to raise $5,000 by August 27.

----------------
Goal: $1 challenge to save a child's life!

LWB is launching a $1 challenge to kick off our new Unity Fund for impoverished, rural families in China. So many times over the years, we have met families who have had to make the painful decision to abandon their child in the hopes of getting them the medical care they need. It has been a dream of ours for many years to begin such a fund, so that when we learn of families in true crisis, we can provide their children with the surgeries they need so that such a painful decision does not have to be made.

We have met so many of these families in person, and they love their children completely, but they simply could never afford a $5000 heart surgery to save their child's life when their family is living on less than $50 per month. Our Unity Fund was created to keep these families united and to give a second chance of a healthy life to at-risk children living in poverty. Join with us on this dream, and actually help prevent children from being orphaned. We challenge everyone to send just ONE DOLLAR during this challenge period to LWB's Unity Fund. Is it possible to find 5000 people to donate $1? With your help, we believe it is. If we meet that goal, then together we can impact a child's life forever.

Pass on this message to everyone you know! Pop just $1 in the mail to Love Without Boundaries and help change the world, one child at a time.

Love Without Boundaries
P.O. Box 25016
Oklahoma City, OK 73125-0016

or donate $1 online at

www.lovewithoutboundaries.com

or donate through Facebook by clicking "donate" and then choosing "other" and putting in $1.

Together we can continue our work of bringing hope to those truly in need!


----------------

To learn more about the goal or donate, follow the link below:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/51591

Thanks,
The Causes Team

George's Artwork

Here is the Sidewalk Art entry George recently did. He won first place in his age category and won $150 for it.

Gracie looks cute too, huh?