Peggy visit

I'm not sure why, but Peggy thought it would be fun to drive back to California with us!  It was actually a pretty quick drive, but all day in a car is no fun, especially when the kids can't agree on what to listen to.
I had made a lot of appointment to get the kids ready for school, so her visit wasn't all that exciting since we couldn't go too far, but we did manage to do a lot in Livermore.
Playing Bocce ball at Campo Di Bocce

 Outdoor concert by the Bankhead.  The songs were great for us older folks but the kids were bored and wanted to go.  Ryan had to fly back to Seattle, so he missed our outing to Sweet Tomatoes on Ainsley's birthday and the concert.

 Peggy had a milestone birthday while she was in town....the big 60!!!  We did paint night and it was actually a really hard painting to do, but I think ours turned out pretty good.  It was also incredibly hot the whole week, but she did o.k. out in the Casita with no air conditioning.

 We also went wine tasting, another first for Peggy.  Not sure she is a wine drinker, but at least she knows she prefers the white over the red.  We split flights and it worked out great because I prefer reds!  Thank you Ryan for being our driver :)

 That's something you don't see everyday!

Summer fun!

I'm finally getting to the one posting I missed last year.  I had to go through about 1000 pictures from our Mexico trip and that was not a task I was wanting to do. 
It was an amazing experience to go on the mission trip to Ensenada and we had a little fun on the way.  On our drive down, we stopped at IFly so Ainsley could finally use her Chrismas gift.  That was lots of fun to watch and someday, I think I would like to do it.  She really enjoyed it! 

A little squirly initially:

She figured it out pretty good by the end:

From there we went to Solvange, CA (also known as the little Denmark) and spent a night there.  The kids had some pool time and we explored the town.  It really felt like we were in a different country!

We stopped in Santa Barbara for lunch and played a little volleyball before heading to Aunt Jeanne's for dinner.  Traffic was terrible but we finally made it and it was fun to see there place and get the tour of their community...so cute!  We stayed in Balboa Park and didn't think through things all that well, but it worked out!  Ryan needed his car for work, so we had to hoof it everywhere we went, so the location of the Worldmark was great....less than a mile from all the museums which we probably would've never gone to otherwise and it ended up being a lot of fun.  We hit the Air and Space museum, Natural history museum, Fleet science center, and Railroad museum. 

 Virtual pilots

After that we went to the beach, even though the weather wasn't so great.  Khalif and Ainsley spent a lot of time in the water and Ryan and Reggie played football. 

I spotted some dolphins super close to shore and that was quite exciting!!!

The next day we met our team of about 40 and boarded the bus to head to Ensenada.  Thankfully, there were a couple other families with kids and Reggie's good buddy, David, so it didn't take long for them to branch out.  We had no idea what to expect and we were pleasantly surprised.  We pulled off the main road and there was a very run down and half exposed hotel and I told Ainsley that is where we were staying and it turned out that we were!  But, part of it was finished and very lovely.  Our room was huge and the food was amazing. 

We did have to get used to not flushing the toilet paper!  It was the first time in a long time that the kids had no devices and the first time ever that Ryan didn't have his phone or computer!  Ryan thought it would be more difficult to be without work but quickly relaxed because he had no connection.  It was amazing!  He thoroughly enjoyed it and we were busy with group sessions and building the house, so I don't think he missed it at all.  It took Reggie a bit to settle in, but he finally stopped asking for my phone.  I didn't realize we were going to have speakers and reflection time and team building activities.  It was awesome and Khalif asked Jesus into his heart!!!!

We jumped right in and Ryan and the kids did a skit for a local church on Sunday and I gave my testimony (our group leader was very adamant about us getting out of our comfort zones!).  We were all stretched a bit...

 Practicing the skit

The next day, I went to an amazing medical facility that we were helping get ready for its grand opening.  Such inspiring stories about how it all came together to support this community that was in desperate need of medical and dental care.  Siloe is going to bless a lot of people! 

While I was there, Ryan and the kids were building.  Well, Ryan and Reggie were building and the other 2 were playing with local kids and the family puppy. 
This is the family and the home they live in:

 Lots of tears from Ainsley when we said goodbye

 2nd bedroom

 What an amazing thing to be part of.  It was so cool to change this families life.  I didn't even know they made a propane stove...what a great invention for this type of need.

Praying over the family and sharing our good wishes for them.

After we finished the home build, we visited an orphanage and did some work and played with the kids.  Those kids were extremely lucky to be at that facility.  It was beautiful and they had lots of activities, schooling and were very well taken care of.  The other half of the group ended up at a not so nice orphanage and they were disturbed by their experience, so I'm grateful we went where we did.

The kids will remember this trip always.

HVAC

Reggie has complained a lot this winter about his room being too hot.  It is very stuffy and the heat blows so hard up there, even though we have shut the registers, which I know is bad for the furnace, but we didn't really have a choice.  Our room is freezing in the winter and hot in the summer, along with the piano room, so I decided to have a few HVAC people over to determine the best fix.  We were considering mini split heat pumps because mom and dad have had good luck, but they also make a large heat pump that can replace a furnace.  So, we got ideas all over the place and prices ranging from $13,000-$28,000.  The heat pump option was really pricey, so we crossed it off the list.  It almost seemed more confusing by the end of it, but Miller's made the most sense.  Our vents were in the wrong place and too small in our room, so they thought it made sense to reduct the downstairs.  This was turning out to be a HUGE project because our furnace was over 25 years old and our air conditioner was not far behind, so we basically had to replace the entire system.  And then, they found asbestos!  Most of the places were not willing to remove it, but Miller's said it was a small enough area that they could do it, so that right there saved us at least $2,000.  They had a crew at our house for an entire week and because they were working in the crawl space, there was dust everywhere.  Thankfully, it was a mild week because we were without heat or air, so we were just a little chilly in the mornings.  We also decided to upgrade the furnace and AC unit to be eligible for the California rebate and we passed the testing, so we'll receive $3,000 back.  It was still a huge chunk of cash, but the house is now 2 zone, so we can turn on the upstairs by itself or just the downstairs and as a bonus, we got smart thermostats, so we can control it from our phones!

Work/life balance

Well, unfortunately, the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction again.  Ryan's job has been very busy....he has had some turnover and hired someone new and has traveled about 50% of the time since March.  We've had some serious conversations about this and I think he gets it, but hasn't been able to get it under control.  It's great that he has built this new data center focus for his company, but it owns him right now.  I'm not saying his job isn't good in some ways as it can be flexible and he does a great job of providing for us, but there comes a point where he is giving too much to his company and we are there.  Hopefully, he can hire someone to do the job he is doing and relieve some of the load, but mostly the problem is his personality where he can't let go of stuff and he is driven by multi-million dollar deals...it his addiction, as he put it.  He has no time for himself and isn't taking very good care of himself and that will catch up to him eventually (it already has as he is gimping around because he won't take the time to go to the doctor to find out what is wrong with his hips and back).
Enough of that....the nice thing about his travels is that he has been flying my mom here to help out!  We had a lot of fun the last time she was here at the end of May and it was a busy week, filled with a school meeting, the foster support group meeting, swimming at the gym (she forgot her suit, so squeezed into mine!), brunch with friends to make promotion lei's, visiting the wine festival and going to the movies, attending open house to see all the kids work this year, doing foster respite, stopping by the farmer's market and doing Meals on Wheels.  As well as the usual sport activities.  I couldn't have done everything without her and what I could have done would have been exhausting, so thank you mom!!!

8th grade in the books....

We officially have a high schooler!  Moving on from middle school is a much bigger deal these days (or maybe it is a California thing).  Reggie had a special breakfast on the last day of school and that night a promotion ceremony with robes and the whole bit.  I'm so glad we go to a smaller school!  The ceremony felt small town and it was entertaining to say the least (the choir sang The Wind Beneath My Wings, by Bette Midler!).

 A bit of a pizza fiasco on the last day.  They offered it for $5, but a bunch of the boys thought that was silly to pay that much for one slice, so they decided to order pizza from Domino's and get an entire half a pizza for $5.  Somehow we got sucked into in and their poor planning made for a little stress.  Ryan called to order the pizza when he got the list from Reggie and they said no dice...too busy, so Reggie suggested Costco,,,same answer.  Good old Little Ceasars was able to accommodate, so the boys didn't go hungry!  I guess that was against the rules because one of Reggie's friends saw me and told me he asked if he could get his own pizza and they told him no.  I guess he learned his lesson that sometimes its better not to ask!  And Reggie learned a lesson that you must collect pizza money from your friends, otherwise you pay the balance.  Luckily, most of them paid.

Reggie had his best trimester yet, holding steady with 6 A's and 1 B, but as we have learned that can change quickly and the last 2 weeks of school two of the A's fell to B's.   But, I saw his effort and his desire to get good grades, so its all good.  The best part about the trimester was that he didn't get a single zero and took more initiative do some extra credit and bring his grades up.  A bit of a relief since next year the grades count.

I guess leis are the thing and thankfully, my friend Krissy clued me in and we had a little party at her house to make them.  It is quite involved and thankfully mom was in town to help me.  It went much quicker with extra hands and it took Reggie and Khalif 43 minutes to get all the money off the lei which was $40.

 I'm guessing Reggie is approaching 5' 10" and we just went through his dresser and he has only 4 pants that are long enough.  I'm going to have to start buying tall length!

He has an awesome group of friends!  I'm so glad one of the moms took some pictures because he couldn't get the robe off fast enough...we didn't even get a family picture 👎.

The other 2 on the last day of school:

 They had field day, but Khalif decided to watch Chicken Little with his new best friend, Miles.

 Ainsley and Ginger enjoyed face painting

Phone fiasco

I have been irritated with Apple for quite some time and the thought of being out from under that empire was becoming more and more appealing.  It all started when I tried to update the blog a few months ago and I couldn't transfer my pictures from my phone to my computer because they weren't there...I could see them, but they weren't really on my phone.  After spending much time with Apple, I was told the phone decides where the pictures go, either straight to the cloud or hard saved on your phone.  I told him that was ridiculous and there should be some sort of setting and he agreed.  So, the problem was, how do I easily transfer them from the cloud to my phone and there was no easy answer.  One by one is what he told me and he could tell I was very unhappy with this solution. 
Then Ryan blew out a candle and the wax landed right on my phone speaker, so I couldn't take calls and hear anything when it was up to my ear.  I scraped it out a few times, but no luck.  Now, in the meantime, Ryan dropped his work phone and shattered the screen.  They sent him a new one and he thought it would be nice to get the screen fixed and give it to me since he had a 7 and I still had a 6. The lady at Verizon was hopeful that the 7 would fix my picture problem because the 6 was so bad that there is a lawsuit (which I asked how you become part of!). So, the day came to transfer everything and after a few hours my new phone said out of storage.  OMG Ryan didn't check the capacity of the phone and it was 32GB and mine was 64GB.  I deleted a lot of stuff off my phone, but that wasn't going to work, so I transferred everything back and decided to fix the speaker problem by melting the wax out.  It worked perfectly and I could hear crystal clear, but Siri started to act up later that day and died shortly after because she lives in the speaker by your ear.  Of course, that makes sense...all this time I talk to her from the bottom of my phone and she never lived there.  Unfortunately, I fried her and since I dictate 90% of the time, my phone was now useless to me.  Good thing it was time for an upgrade anyway.
Now, we had just added Reggie's phone to the insurance plan to fix the many problems with his 6 (come to find out later that his claim would likely have been denied), so he was eyeing the 7.  We agreed that if he paid for the screen repair, he could have it.  We have had many issues with my phone and his phone being connected, especially when setting up a new phone, so I found a place in settings where I could delete the 7 from my account and that seemed like the easiest way to insure we wouldn't have issues again.  This locked the phone...there was no message that said this was going to happen!  It took hours and research to finally unlock it and the boys were not so happy with me.  This was a very frustrating weekend and the next day we had a pool party for Ainsley's trampoline and it happened to be right by the Verizon store.  I had a Pina Colada and Ryan said we should leave Ainsley and go get a phone.  So, I was a little altered when I decided to ditch apple and go with the Google Pixel.  The salesperson had both phones and was steering me a little in that direction because she loves Android.  Well, long story short, the phone was great in many ways but there were a lot of little nuances that I had to work around and I found it very annoying.  I took it in to Verizon after about 5 days and had all my questions and the guy helping me was navigating much like me and I asked him what phone he had and he had an Iphone 10.  So, we both scratched our heads why certain things worked that way, but he was able to find a way to make everything work.  There's always a fix if you download an App!  And, it glitched every now and then as well.  Everyone else in the family has Apple and I wouldn't be able to find their phones, do Facetime or share their plugs.  Anyway, I had a bad day with the phone and it went back.  I got the 8 and honestly was annoyed going back to the old way of doing things.  I probably would have been just fine keeping it, but I was done.  I uploaded some new Apps on my Apple based on my great experiences with Google.  Now, my pictures are backed up by them and there's no fee and I can mass download to my computer.  And, guess what????  My missing pictures showed up, so now I can update the blog from Christmas through March (not really looking forward to that, but so excited to have my pictures back!!!).  Reggie also found the setting on the phone that allows you to choose where the pictures live, so the Apple guy was wrong unless the recent update fixed that problem! 

Toddlers

Word is out and we have been doing long-term respite, mainly when foster parents go on vacation.  Since April, we've had 3 and its been a lot of work, but very fun!  We had our first girl, little L was 15 months old and she was so amazing....smart, a good sleeper and eater and overall she was so easy and made us laugh a lot.  She was a dancer and if she had a beat, she was moving (even while eating!).
We've had little M two times now and he is 14 months.  Also, easy peasy and so chill, but he is way behind on walking/talking, but he has been in foster care for almost 3 months and has come along way in a very short time.  We almost got him to say ball!
None of these pictures or videos are great due to privacy, but you can get a little flavor of our fun:

Even the cat liked her!

And, we've had baby C (hopefully, soon to be baby T when he is adopted!) several times since we first got him in December.  His foster mom is a single mom, so I asked her to please let us help when we can.  He was supposed to go to family this month, but that didn't work out and it looks like she is going to adopt him and we are all very excited about that :).  This last weekend was really crazy, we had baby T and little M all day Saturday.  Thankfully, we didn't have much going on and it was a lot more manageable than I thought.  We often sit around and just hang with all the kids (and laugh a lot) and for me it was more restful than our normal crazy weekends.  It is really fun to see our kids and their interest.  We got a call today for a 9 month old and Reggie said we should go get him, but I reminded him we are leaving next week, so that's a no go.  We have to make sure we have balance and rest, as Ryan has had a little bit of a hard time with the life interruption and lack of freedom.
I've started to realize that this path we're on might be more about others, than ourselves.  We don't plan to adopt again and I've asked myself what is the point of what we're doing, but I have been reminded that there's lots of purpose.  The foster parents are so appreciative that they can have a nice vacation without worrying about their little ones and I can't tell you how many conversations we have had with people about fostering, maybe planting a seed or just opening their eyes about the foster system.  We went to a birthday party when we had baby T and the host really didn't know that we fostered and she opened up about their failed adoption recently and how she needed this to give her direction!  God is amazing!!!

Give and you shall receive!

We try to be generous with what God has blessed us with and last year we bought a well through Samaritan's Purse and never expected so much to come out of it.  They have been so amazing about keeping us informed and updating us on what is going on in certain parts of the world without asking for more money.  We even had a visit at our house from one of their employees who gave us all kinds of info and tailored it to the kids.  We were invited to a reception for the Franklin Graham California tour and I thought, why not?  So, last night we drove to Berkeley and what a blessing!  We got to hear stories from Franklin Graham about his 2 organizations that are changing the world.  He had a couple of shoe box stories that were amazing!  And to hear what they do medically during disasters was really eye opening.  I think we were all filled up just from that, but that wasn't even the event.  There was a large, free event with Jeremy Camp.  We weren't quite prepared as we saw people packing in their camp chairs and that didn't even occur to me, so we had to sit in the grass.  There were a bunch of people already camped out but we managed to find a place where there were others who didn't have chairs (they blocked the view).  There was still plenty of time before the event, so Ainsley and I walked around to see if we could find anyone we knew and we ended up at the very front and there was plenty of room for us to sit, so why not???  The boys didn't want to move...their loss (they did end up joining us at the end)!  Jeremy Camp came out not long after and sang my favorite song, Word of Life.  There was so much energy and the words he spoke were powerful.  After a couple songs, he looked over in our direction and said, "What's your name."  We didn't know who he was talking to because there were a lot of people, but he then said, "You, young girl."  And Ainsley was the only kid in the area, so she told him her name and he repeated it and asked how old she was and then gave her a message.  I wasn't quite quick enough with the phone (would have missed the whole message if I still had my Iphone), but I got most of it...a message for all of us:

As if the night wasn't good enough, that was amazing!  I guess the boys were freaking out in the back because he was talking to us :).  Then, Franklin Graham spoke again and called people to stand if they wanted to accept Christ and there were so many people who did!  So moving and unforgettable.  When we were going back to the car, I said how that made me just want to go and share Christ with everyone and the kids agreed.  It was such a powerful reminder of our purpose here on earth, our one and only purpose, share the good news and love of God!

It also reminded me that we have to put ourselves out there in order to do this.  It might be uncomfortable and take us places we never thought we would go or do things we never thought we would do, but just maybe we will see God at work and have just one or two stories like Franklin Graham.  I think a lot of times we don't see the fruits of our labor, but to be obedient when God calls is all we need to do.  If we're lucky, years later we'll understand why certain things happened or why we were on the path we were on.  Maybe that won't happen until eternity, but God gives us what we need and I was reminded of that when I read my Mother's Day card from Khalif.  Definitely, the most challenging thing I've ever done in so many ways but to know that Khalif gets it, makes it worth it!