Summer is Here!!

We are in the home stretch of end-of-the-year madness!  Berkeley, Lukas and Isabelle finished their classes last week at eQuip; sad to leave those special friendships for our new adventure in the public schools.  Berkeley's class had a dinner to send off the older children; I shed a few tears- she will be in 8th grade next year!!  Where has the time gone?!?  She is in New York this week with her class on a mission trip to work with the homeless.  We have received some fun texts from her and she is having a blast!  

Paxton and Phoebe have 3 days of school left and for them it is not fast enough.  Our pool opened this weekend and all they want to do is swim-or drown.  Phoebe likes to jump in where she cannot touch the bottom.  She jumped on Isabelle at one point where Isabelle could not reach the bottom and in an attempt to keep Phoebe from drowning, kept her own face under water.  Daron had to jump in the pool fully clothed to save his girls- luckily he pulled out his phone first: )  I think Phoebe thought it was quite an adventure; Isabelle burst into tears from fright, but now loves to tell the story of her heroic save.  Paxton can swim, but just enough to get from one side of the shallow end to the other.  He attempted the diving board once and realized he couldn't reach the bottom, so he said he would stay in the shallow end where there was not so much water.  I am sure as summer progresses, and he sees his siblings jumping off, he will change his mind : )

We leave for Michigan Saturday morning.  This is our annual trip that we take with my sister and her family.  They have a time share and we go along for the ride.  We will stay in Boyne in a cute resort town.  The kids go boating, swimming and tons of outdoor things.  There is a water park on the premises and this is always a highlight.  We take a day trip to Macanaw Island and rent bikes to explore the island.  Tons of fudge and salt water taffy round out our time away from home!

This time last year is when we committed to hosting Oleg.  It was the best decision.  Isabelle asked me why this blog is still named Oleg's Journey and I told her because this is where it all began.  Our family is what it is because God chose to use a beautiful boy to open our hearts and home to adoption. We still pray for him and his family in Italy.  We want him to experience the love and grace of his Heavenly Father.  We LOVE the choice God had in mind for us in Paxton and Phoebe.  They are our children.  Paxton loves to look at pictures of Oleg's time with us and he wants stories.  They were good friends in Ukraine and Paxton understands that he is our son, while Oleg was our dear friend.  

God is touching their hearts.  Paxton prayed out loud at dinner last week thanking God for every family member and his food (loves his food).  He wants the Bible read to him at night and while in the car, asks Isabelle or Berkeley to read the red words in the Bible ( red in our Bible are the words spoken by Jesus), not the black.  We told him the black words are valuable too, but he wants Jesus' words right now.  Phoebe walks around the house saying her verse Dad gave them last week, "Try to be good to others first".   We pray that God would continue to reveal Himself to them through different people and experiences.  We love where God has us and pray that others would find their faith stretched by loving the orphans of this world!!