Partners in crime

It's always so much fun to watch these two together.

Road Trip

This will be mostly photos, because if I don't just get them up here, it will never happen. ;)

Before our big trip to visit Andrea's parents next week, we thought we'd take a day trip to Duluth. We had no real agenda besides meeting my cousin's new baby and seeing the lake. We ended up doing the basic Canal Park tourist thing, but it was everything our crew wanted.

funny photo at the restaurant we ate at

neat water features along the sidewalks

and just enough space down by the shore to throw little rocks while climbing on big rocks

Krassi's chair wasn't going to make it over the big rocks, so Daddy carried him down.

'Vania's on my back, which is why she's missing in this photo of Dad and the kids.

There she is! Right by her buddy (whose found a cool "handle" in the rock.)

Look at that big throw! (You can see his rock at the top of the photo.)

Matt thinks we should title this one, "Taste of Minnesota." (Yes, those wet spots on the rock are from where he was licking it. And, yes, it made him that happy.)

Hiding in the rocks.

Big climber girl.

Pants rolled up to get right in that cold water.

Rinnah wading.

Look who found a "cave!"

And the best of six self-timer shots. Only one crying, and most of us are looking!

Can't post about a road trip without a photo of Big Blue. Here we are filling up at the antiquated diesel pump which stands off at the edge of the lot. And, because the pump is as old as it looks, and was apparently made before modern inventions such as credit cards, we had to go inside to pay. BUT, we paid the same amount per gallon for diesel as we would have for regular fuel, and our average miles per gallon for the trip? 22.9!!!! Can't argue with that! On the topic of Big Blue, I should also mention that as we were busy throwing our rocks I heard someone call to me, "Hi! We saw your van in the parking lot and thought, 'No way that's them, but how many big blue vans can there be?' and sure enough, it was you!" No hiding for us anymore. ;)

My cousin lives outside Duluth heading back towards home, so we ended our day there. Krassi was really glad for a break. Car riding is NOT his thing, and he got to bum around on the floor here. All of us, except 'Vania who was napping, are sitting around adoring Baby Joy.

My girls were delighted to hold her, and have spent the last few days playing with newly renamed baby dolls. Rinnah's are Hope Joy and Joy Hope, and Leah's are Rose Joy and Joy Rose. ;)

 Having a large family, and a large family that includes individual with unique requirements makes it hard to be easily mobile, and that means a trip like this is not only fun for the trip, but also for the freedom that it signifies. We did it! We up and packed everyone up, and made it work, and got to enjoy making memories as a family. Good stuff.

Coming soon

Life is going to get just a little bit more interesting around here in January!

"Are they twins?"

One of my favorite questions to be asked when I'm out with the kids is, "Are they twins?" (in reference to Reuben and Krassimir, who are still essentially the same size.) I love this question because it opens up so many opportunities for interesting conversations with strangers about real topics that matter to me. There's the obvious topic of adoption - it's so neat to be able to introduce them as brothers, yes, but far from being twins, one of them is half the age of the other, and they're not even genetically related. But there are other topics, too. Although Krassimir's handicap is pretty obvious visually, Reuben's differences are usually pretty apparent as well by the time we've gotten this far into a conversation. ;) Sometimes I wonder if it's because the boys are both "different" that people assume they're twins, and less that they look particularly alike.  But to be able to speak in a positive light about the challenges of raising these boys - after all, one of them we didn't get a choice on, but the other we did! - opens the opportunity to talk about the value of all human life, and the richness that these two boys - and not just these, too, but all of our children, because I usually have at least some of the others with me - add to the world around them. The obvious small stature of Krassimir in comparison to his half-his-age brother provides the chance to talk about the injustices that exist in the world today - this isn't just happening "somewhere" to "someone" but it happened to real live person sitting with us at this very moment. And it's not okay.

No, they're not twins, but I'm so glad you asked.

Offer...accepted!!!

Woo hoo!!

Matt just called me on his way home saying they accepted our offer! This just blows me away, though it really shouldn't. Once again, God has made it possible for us to conduct our financial affairs in the way He's directing us to. Matt said he just told the seller how much money we had saved up (to the exact cent!) and asked if that was okay, and the seller's response was that the number we were offering was $500 less than what he'd had in his head for where he wanted to end up, and he was okay with that!

Done!!

We'll go pick it up next weekend.

Making an offer

Matt's on his way to return Big Blue and make an offer!

Test run

I'll have to get a photo tomorrow, but the most current update on the status of Big Blue is that we've done a 24 hour swap with our "Little Blue" (the Jetta my parents gave us last year) so Matt can run Big Blue in person to our mechanic and body shop tomorrow to check things over before we make an offer. That means right now, Big Blue is sitting out in our very own driveway. Pretty crazy. ;)