Journey to Julia Video


James 1:27 – “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction”

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Thankful Hearts

I love the line in the Veggie Tales song that says "Because a thankful heart is a happy heart...".  Very true.  Well we are thankful for a very blessed weekend gone by.

I'm also learning that in today's cyber world there are Facebook people, blog reading people, email people, and then a very rare breed that do all of the above.  So even though our weekend goings on have been posted multiple times by different people in different places, I'll post it here again for the benefit of those blog only people.

We had a great visit with Andrea G from Canada including a great hike at Mount Mohonk.

And a great visit with Uncle Lau including a Christmas wonderland display.



 Addisu's first visit to see Santa - ever!




And there is the ever adorable Julia.

As we work our way through Advent season, time to prepare to celebrate the coming of the infant Jesus.  Christmas will be here before we know it.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  We have been busy all this week preparing for Thanksgiving 2011.  We are very excited in our household, because this will be our first Thanksgiving with Julia at home.  Tom and I met Julia last year on Thanksgiving Day.  That evening we went out to Celentano's Pizzeria, in Kharkov, to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Along with the joy of meeting Julia that day, Tom and I were also sad, since we were missing our children back home very much.  So this year we are really looking forward to spending Thanksgiving together, along with two special guests.

My uncle will be spending the long weekend with us.  He lives a pretty quiet life in rural upstate New York and I'm sure, on some level, he is happy to return to his little home in the country after of a couple of days with our group. :)
 
Our other guest is coming all the way from Canada.  Many of you may also know this special person.  Around our home she is affectionately called, "Andrea the Missionary".  I discovered Andrea's blog when I saw a comment she left on another RR family's blog.  It just so happened that Andrea had been on a mission in another region in Ukraine at the same time Tom and I were over there.  She is home now, so I decided to contacted her.  We have read each others' blogs and exchanged some e-mails.  I could tell from just reading Andrea's posts that she is a special person and I knew we could spend hours talking about orphan care and RR.  I invited Andrea to come and visit with us and I thought Thanksgiving would be a fun time for her to come to the "States".  So, needless to say, we are all very excited that Andrea took us up on our invitation and will be coming for a visit.  We can't wait to hear about all of the missions she has gone on.  You can visit Andrea's blog here.

We hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We pray for safe travel for all those making a trip to visit friends and relatives.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Happy Birthday Julia!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Julia baby! 5 years ago today, you came into this world. We didn't know you then, and we wouldn't for another 4 years. But how amazing and blessed we are to think that a year ago today we were getting ready to travel to you, and a year from then, we now have you home with us! You are funny, sweet, silly, independent- I could go on and on.Your spontaneous little giggles light up our lives more than you know. You have shown me personally things I never would have learned on my own. You have taught me so many things in just one year of being home. I so hope you enjoy your first birthday with us, and I can't wait to celebrate them with you for the rest of our lives.

                                                            January 2011

                                                             February 2011

                                                              March 2011


                                                                 April 2011

                                                                  May 2011

                                                                   June 2011

                                                                July 2011

                                                                August 2011




September 2011



                                                                October 2011





                                                                     November 2011
                                               
                                                               Happy Birthday Beautiful :)