Vacation photos at last!!!

 See, I told you that I would come through with our vacation pics.  I'm just glad I got them in this year!  Of course I have way more pictures than you have patience, and way more pictures than I have patience waiting for them to load onto the site.  I carefully selected and here's what I got:

Let me start by commending the wonderful TSA people at the unnamed airport from which we flew.  Since we were not getting fed on the plane (though Southwest serves some decent snacks), we each had our own lunch bags.  I froze yogurt for each one of us and included mandarins and applesauce (all in sealed individual serving size tubs).  Depending on which agent you got going through security, you either lost all three containers, kept all three containers, or kept a combination of them.   Thankfully I had packed other food so we did not completely waste away in our six hour flight (though there are parts of me I would like to "waist" away, har har).

 You'll note that James is sitting with Micah who slept almost the entire way there.  I had the job of entertaining my busy bee, Kara, who decided to finally fall asleep ten minutes before we landed.  I told James, "We're switching twins on the way home."

We landed in Tennessee which was really hot.  I mean really really really I can't believe how hot it is hot.  When we "deplaned" Gabriel asked, "Why is it so hot?" I (being very westcoast snob centric) said, "Because we're not in California anymore."  Some lady (very southeast centric) overheard and retorted, "You're in God's country now!" I resisted a response.

Our first stop was to visit a family we had met in China.  They were there to adopt their daughter, Hopey. We met in the playroom of the hotel in Guangzhou and hit it off instantly.  Kittye and Mike are adoption pros (though they would not want me to say that as they are very humble, which makes you admire them all the more).  They currently have nine kids at home (two are out of the house, one is in heaven): two biological, five from Liberia, and two from China.  They were so kind (and kind of crazy) to allow us to descend on their home.

Thankfully they have a pool, because well, did I tell you that it was hot there? I do have to be fair and say that it was unusually hot.  The Kelley's friends and family we met apologized to us for the weather.

This is Will who has the best smile ever.

 Here the WTs are playing with Isaac and John Michael (who I tried to smuggle out to take home with me...after all, they have so many kids, couldn't they spare one?) in a rice box.  Amazingly enough, it looked pretty much like this when they were done playing.  John Michael asked the best question I've heard in a long time.  He said, "Mrs. Froisland, why do you only have five kids?" I told him we were working on growing our family.  Besides, once upon a time his parents only had five kids.  There was also a time they had no kids.  To which John Michael looked very seriously at me, shook his head and said, "Nooooo."  I guess when you are the second youngest of the clan it's hard to imagine a world without kids.

 You'd think with 14 kids in the house, it'd be mass chaos.  Well, it was controlled chaos.  The Kelley's household is a well-oiled machine which made it extremely easy for us to step in and integrate.  The kids had a blast together, so we hardly saw them.  Emily (all the way to the right) had written a play that we saw our first night there.  She put together another production for us in which our kids were more than happy to participate.

 This is Hopey.  Yes, she really is this cute in real life.

Mike gave a memorable quote when, in talking about our Suburban, he said, "Well someday we'll downsize to a Suburban."  We had an amazing time with the Kelley's.  We begged them to visit us in California.  Yes, housing would be interesting, but we can pitch tents in the backyard.  Mike assured us that if they came to visit, he'd give us at least 24 hours notice.

 Our main reason for going east was for the Korver family reunion which occurs every three years.  I think there were about 100 or so present.  I love these reunions.  There are no feuds between family members, no weird Uncle Bernie who embarrasses everyone by scratching his belly in public, no black sheep, just loving families who are accepting and welcoming and wonderful and fun!

The reunion was at a very nice camp in North Carolina.  Again, I rarely saw my kids as they scattered here and there to play with "first cousins once removed."

This is Gabriel (nicknamed "Bob") with cousin Bob.  Bob gave Gabriel the "Bob" shirt at the last reunion.  We promised to take a picture of the two of them every reunion with Gabriel wearing that shirt.

Okay, no weird Uncle Bernie, but a crazy Cousin Kathy.  If you have a birthday near a reunion, watch out! You'll get a song written about you and sung to you very loudly (truth be told, it is super fun to be the "target").

 Is this a force to be reckoned with or what?

As you'll see, Kara made her way around...

 Before leaving North Carolina, we squeezed in a short visit with Jeremy, Julie (who has since had another
 baby girl) and Eden.  We've known Jeremy for a long time as he grew up in our church.  I once had a banana eating contest with him in Mexico.  He won, though shoving a whole banana in your mouth is not really fair.

 From North Carolina, we drove to Kentucky (or "Tentucky" as Micah called it).  Let me stop the narrative briefly here to comment on something.  Out of California, we are a conspicuous family.  I've never really thought that since there are many families that look like ours at home.  Not so back there.  We ate at an IHOP one day and I took Kara to the bathroom while James and the other kids got seated.  When Kara and I rejoined our family the server was at the table.  She looked at me and said, "So will this all be on one check?"  James and I looked at each other speechless.  Huh? I stammered out, "Uh, yes it will."  James quipped, "He'll (pointing to Micah) be paying."  Our guess is that she might have thought we were two separate families???

Another time we were at the petting area in the Creation Museum (another stop for us).  I again took Kara to the bathroom (bad time to pottytrain) and when I came and stood next to James, a lady laughed and said, "Now it all makes sense!"  I just kind of smiled at her and she said, "I thought how nice it was for your husband to adopt all your children (she was referring to our four biological children), but now it makes sense!"

As I said, we stopped in to the Creation Museum.  Being big fans of Answers in Genesis, we were eager to see the museum dedicated to defending creationism.  It's a very impressive place.  One big highlight for us was seeing Buddy Davis.  He is a dinosaur sculpter, writer, and singer-songwriter.  Our kids have grown up listening to his music, and Micah and Kara are now his biggest fans in our household.  While we were at the museum, I spotted him while we were eating our lunch.  Not wanting to start a riot, I whispered, "There's Buddy Davis!"  I couldn't believe people were not swarming around him.  I wondered if he was an actor portraying Buddy Davis.  Being the embarrassing mom, I made the kids go over and take a picture with him.  I was trying not to be too giddy.  I don't know if I succeeded.

 We got a lot of comments on our trip about the WTs.  Sometimes we were nice and told people that they weren't really twins, and explained that one was adopted (people then asked which one was adopted).  Other times we felt like being mean and just commented that they were not twins, but were nine months apart.  We let people go away shaking their heads at that.

After our trip to the Creation Museum, we drove to Indiana to visit another family we met in China.  In fact, we spent most of our time in China with the Faulkners (and another great family) as our kids came from the same orphanage.  They were not strangers to adoption as they had previously adopted another son from Korea.  Joe and Beth were accompanied by two of their girls (they have six kids total), Jennifer and Sarah, in China, so we got to know them as well.  We had enjoyed this family so much in China, we could not wait to meet up with them.  Plus, we were eager to hear Micah speak English as he was only speaking Chinese when we last saw him.  We were also looking forward to them seeing Kara with hair!

This is their Micah.  He wanted to make sure we didn't mix him up with our Micah, so he told me to call our Micah, "Micah, Micah."  This guy is absolutely thriving.  He's being homeschooled, so Mom is obviously doing a great job!

Here is Wesley who likes Legos as much as my kids.  He and Gabriel also did a lot of Bionicle talking.  This picture was taken at a fountain near (on?) the Purdue campus.  The kids had a blast getting blasted by the water. 

Sarah really bonded with Kara in China, so it was fun to see them back together.  I told her I would love for her to babysit, but the plane fare back and forth might be a little much for a night out.

This is Jennifer who is perhaps one of the gentlest people you've ever met.  She and Sarah are both great with kids. 

We had a super time with the Faulkners.  They were wonderfully hospitable and we had great food and great conversation.  They don't have little ones in their home, but they were extremely accomodating with the WTs.  They were always assuring me the WTs were no bother.  The visit with them was a great way to end our trip, though we were sorry to have to say goodbye.

We left really early in the morning to drive to the airport.  The kids fell asleep in the car except for Kara.  Out of the blue she started singing.  It was a song that had a definite beginning, middle and end, but not one that we recognized.  In fact, we didn't recognize any words at all.  We became convinced that she was singing a Chinese song that was stored way back in her memory.  When we first got her she didn't speak (even in Chinese), but once she did sing a little bit of a song.  I asked her to sing her "special song" again, and she did.  Of course if I ask her to sing her special song now, it comes out as "Deep and Wide" or "Jesus Loves Me" or a combination of the two.

Once we got to the airport, we had a slight issue going through security.  The Kelleys had given us two shakers of this really yummy seasoning to take home with us.  One of the shakers had already been opened, but the other was still sealed.  James forgot that he put the shakers in his backpack, which was his carryon.  Apparently, an opened container of a powdered substance is not a good thing to try to take on the plane.  Here's where I give a shout out to the TSA guy at the airport in Indiana.  He took the opened shaker and was apologetic about having to test it! We completely understood why it was needed, but he was easygoing, professional, and he explained the whole process to us.  When it was confirmed that we were really only sneaking on cajun seasoning and not bomb making substances, we were on our way.  And yes, I sat next to Micah on the way home. 

I have to comment that we met some really nice people on our trip.  When we came into Kentucky we could not find our hotel and got lost in a residential area.  James asked for directions from a man in a truck who was on the side of the road.  He offered to drive us by there even though we were quite far away.  He said he was kind of heading in that direction.  We followed him for a good ways, he slowed down in front of our hotel, then went on his way without us being able to say thanks.

When we arrived back home, James went to get our car which was parked in another location away from the airport.  That left me with the five kids and all our luggage.  After waiting for a while, I decided to move us outside which had to be done in stages.  A woman stopped me and asked if I needed any help getting to my car.  I thanked her and said that we were waiting for our ride (which ended up taking a looooooong time to come, which is a looooong story).

Before I sign off, a quick update on child #6.  We have new video and pictures of him.  He is ridiculously adorable and needs to be home!!! If you're praying types, please pray for quick movement of paperwork.  Merry Christmas to you all and I leave you with one more picture of the WTs enjoying the after effects of rain.