Road trip to Goa

This year we decided to road trip it to Goa for some annual meetings. We've never made this trip before so we were unsure how the roads would be for the second half of the trip and very uncertain about the bathroom and petrol locations along the way :) We took a different route going and returning and because we did, we got to see some beautiful views along the way. Besides the challenge of finding toilets and petrol, I love driving through rural India. You experience and see so much that the big cities can't offer. We took the longer route on the trip down, so we could stop for the night in a small town on the coast of our state. The beach was clean and the water warm! It really is a gem and hard to beleive it's in the same state as some of the other places we've been. It's like a whole different culture and has a very different feel to it. We wanted to linger longer the next day and go see a fort on an island, but it just so happened to be Holi (the festival of throwing colored powder on people) and call me a grump, but I have NO interest in participating in that tradition :) We we found a quiet place for breakfast and stayed in our car as much as possible to avoid being 'colored'. 

Too busy to take a pic with mom.

Cricket on the beach.

A local beach in our state.

Kids + Sand = endless fun

He would hate me putting this up, but he's too handsome not to :)

It was fun to watch the locals on the beach for a change, rather than feeling like we are the ones being watched. :)

Homeschool Conference

Proud of his certificate of participation.

Jackson and I got away for a week in February to chilly New Delhi for a homeschool conference. Besides being big sissies in the cold, wet climate, we had a really great time. Jackson got to be in a Kindergarten class all week long, which he now accredits nearly everything he knows to. He was able to play with a couple good buddies and make some new ones too. Mom had sessions everyday, including some great breakout sessions on Classical Education and daily encouraging sessions from Pam Tebow.

Her sessions were so uplifting as she spoke from experience of living abroad, homeschooling her kids in the US and abroad, and discipling her children with God's word. The biggest take-away I got from her, was the importance of speaking scripture to our kids, daily. And not just in the form of reading bible stories, but in daily life, applying scriptures to every situation we can, and helping them to hide the Word in their (and our) hearts. She always put scriptures to a tune, to help her kids (and herself) memorize it. I have been trying to grow in this area this school year, as we have included the ABC bible verses in our school day. We do a scripture a week and the boys have amazed me with how much they remember. I've always been poor at memorizing so I've bee motivated to learn along with them, but also on my own. For the past two years, I have been trying to memorize scripture that is applicable to what I'm dealing with in day to day life. (i.e. our adoption process). Our family enjoys Seeds Family Worship, which has helped us all to hide God's word in our heart. This year I'm using Desiring God's Fighter versus app for a weekly verse to memorize and I plan on using that with my kids when we finish up ABC's Bible verses. The Fighter Versus app even has the verse put to song for you! That's a huge bonus for those of us like me, who are not so musically talented.

I also loved the Classical Education Sessions and felt like I walked away with a better understanding of the philosophy and an ambition and excitement to educate my kids this way. I've 'drunk the cool-aid' on Classical Education and even look forward to teaching my kids Latin someday (and learning with them).

We are nearly done with school year and are excited to have a summer break that will be full of other activities. The boys start Hindi lessons 2x a week next week, either tennis or football (soccer) soon, and lots of swimming and art at home. I really need to use this time to have regular speech therapy sessions with them both as well. I was so grateful to have speech therapists and reading specialists at the conference! The ST gave me lots of helpful tips to work on my boys lisps.

Jackson is STOKED to be in First grade. Achieving that status has been his motivation on lazy days. He is in such a hurry to grow up :( Hudson, while already teaching himself to read, is going to do another year of preschool, or what we'll call Lower KG (Indian-lingo for PreK 4).

So here is my homeschool plan for first grade for Jackson:

All About Reading Level 2 (We have LOVED this phonics program)
All About Spelling Level 1
Singapore Math First grade (We love this math!)
Hand Writing Without Tears Level 2
Tapestry of Grace Primer (for K-2nd graders) Humanities subjects which we will spread out over two years. We are super excited about this! It's designed to teach mom how to teach as well.

Lower KG for Hudson:
All About Reading Level 1-He's already doing it on his own, so I might as well encourage it.
Learning Palette math and phonics from Usborne Books. 

Homeschooling Art

Wednesdays are "art" day in our house. The one day of the week I can use this sweet leverage to get homeschool started and finished on time, because our neighbor-friend comes over to do art with us. Most weeks, it works out this way, although lately it's been skipped too often b/c of sickness or our family traveling. I love letting the boys paint and create, but I am not good at thinking up projects to do. We I bought a dvd this year called The Home Art Studio, and there is one for each grade level. It's perfect b/c she is a sweet teacher who walks them through the whole project and includes a simple one page lesson plan for mom to see what supplies she needs...the morning of :) I enjoy just facilitating this and watching them enjoy creating. Here are a few samples of what they've made this year.

Learning about primary and secondary colors

I love how J and H are making the same faces in this pic

Making Sunflowers like Van Gough

Water color geometric trains

Two Years and Counting Our Joy

I'm long overdue for posting an update on our adoption process. Sadly, not much progress has been made in the last 7 months. We have been waiting for all of our court documents to come in since we passed court last July. We need all of these documents to move to the next step, which is filing our i600, the request for citizenship for our children. 

I had planned on filing the i600 in Kinshasa and by doing so, getting another opportunity to see our kids. But unfortunately, our paperwork was not ready before my visa expired in October. A simple visa means a flight to our capital city, and $400 for the visa. I grieved seeing this window of opportunity close. I was so longing to see them again and reassure them we are coming back for them.

In December we finally received everything we need, but there were major errors on several of them. We are currently waiting on one more document to be corrected, so we can file our i600, God willing, sometime in February. Once we file, we wait for our approval and once that is received, the US Embassy in Kinshasa begins it's 3-6 month long investigation to ensure our children are orphans by US standards. Once this investigation is complete, we can apply for our kids US visas and hopefully travel to pick them up soon after.

During the last 7 months, while not much progression was happening in our case, a lot has been doing on in Congo and with Congolese adoptions in general. Most notably, in September the DGM (Congolese Immigration office) decided to temporarily stop issuing Exit Letters for children adopted by foreigners. The DGM shut down will continued, possibly until September of this year as they restructure their procedures. So, while we may be able to pick up our children before September, we will not be allowed to take them out of the Congo, until the DGM reopens. And when it reopens. we will find out what new procedures they are incorporating. 

When we begin this adoption process, I always saw 24 months as the 'worst case scenario' in terms of our time frame. But God's plans were different. We just hit the 2 year mark and have no end in certain sight. We are striving to be thankful for each day and month that passes, as it is ultimately bringing us closer to having J & T home. It's not easy though. In fact, it's probably the hardest journey I've ever been on. We go through spurts of excitement when we can tangibly DO something which gets us closer to them. Like forms to be filled out, emails to send, things to mail, etc and then more long dull months of just.....lots of waiting.  It's not just a simple feeling of impatience or excitement. It's not just a simple question of "do you trust God or not?" The best way I can describe it is-- as if you are fighting a battle with your arms tied behind your back and a blind fold on. You have to trust everyone around you, that is supposed to be fighting on your side, to protect you. You have to trust God to be your eyes and direct every step you take, no matter how dark it is. You have to listen to His voice for reassurance that the end is in His sight and by His strength you can persevere. It's a gut wrenching longing to have your children safely in your arms, yet not being able to do anything about it. It's a daily battle to fight off fears and worries that they may never make it home to you. It's frequent thoughts of wondering what they are doing, how well fed they are today and what are their tender hearts feeling.

Trusting God in the midst of all of these emotions and concerns is one of the biggest tests of faith I've ever had. I feel like we are living out James chapter 1, "because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance" and I'm praying that we will "Let perseverance finish its work so that (we) may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." And with each trying day, we're counting our joy and relying more on our faithful Father.