INDIA.... HERE WE COME (this is NOT the trip to pick up our little princess and the little girl in the yellow dress is NOT Alesha)

As many of you know Darin and I are headed to India on a mission trip with a group of 17 people from Westport Church. We leave on August 8th and return on August 18th. We have been training and preparing since January and are excited to finally be so close to leaving....a bit nervous too! The top photo is the slum area that we will be working in and the bottom two photos are just a couple of the many precious faces we will be able to minister Jesus' love to during a Vacation Bible School we will do while we are there. We have a doctor on our team who will give much needed medical attention to the many people in need, and we have several construction projects planned to help their living conditions. (These photos were taken by our Mission Coordinator on a previous trip.)

Our team has set up a blog so you can follow the trip on a frequent basis while we are there. Visit http://www.steppingoutonthewater.blogspot.com/

Please keep us and our team in your thoughts are prayers. Check back to our blog as we will be posting photos and stories from the trip upon our return home.

Adoption Dossier Complete!!!!!!!

I had to document this occasion. Darin was at work and the boys were not with me so I asked the lady at the Postal Annex to take my picture holding the long awaited completed Dossier!! We are now officially #13 on the waiting list for Alesha our Little Indian Princess. Our VERY LONG wait for a referal has begun. Check out the side bar of the blog for our adoption process so far. I will keep it updated as things progress.

Adoption Paperwork

The boys and I took a drive down to our Capitol's Public Service Building to have our adoption paperwork apostilled on July 10th. This was the final step of getting our Adoption Dossier ready to mail off!!! The boys were very patient while we waited for about an hour and half.

We took a trip over to the Capitol Building while we waited for our paperwork. The boys have never been to the Capitol so it was fun to take a quick look around. I tried to get some creative shots with my "stupid little camera" and wished that Darin had been there to take some photos...the photos opts were endless. These were the best I could come up with....I think they turned out pretty good considering the equipment I had.

Discovery Village

Man have our boys grown since we were here last. I decided to surprise the kids and take them to Discovery Village since we were already in Salem to have our adoption paperwork apostilled. It is a great place to go and worth the drive....just make a day of it. There are a ton of outside and inside activities. Our boys are getting too big for most of it, but they still loved the play structures and the other areas in photos below. If you have an OMSI membership you can get in free or the local library has a pass to get in for free too!

Outdoor Activities

They also have a gigantic play stucture that you climb up and there are several slides you can come down on. The boys had a blast!!

Welcome to China

There was an entire room dedicated to China....Martin visited the Great Wall of China. The boys had fun finding out what animal they were by the year they were born. I thought they did a nice job on this room.

Shop Til' You Drop

This was a fun area too! I thought it was funny that the carts had signs that said "customer in training" The boys enjoyed this supermarket better than the one at the Children's Museum...much cleaner and many more choices.

Bubble Room

Our boys have always loved bubbles. This is a really fun room that takes bubbles to another level. Instead of the flimsy wands and small bottles you have at home you can really make some cool stuff here.

This tricycle cracked me up. Can you imagine riding this down your neighborhood street? Too funny!

Cowboy and Indian

I am amazed at how our creative our boys can be. They were playing upstairs and this is what I saw when they came down. I think they have watched too many Lone Ranger videos.

Luke turns 8 years old!!!!!!!!!!

Luke had his party at Skate World this year. He had a great time with his friends. This year we had donuts instead of cake. It seemed to go over better than cake. It seems that cake is not liked by many kids, but donuts, how could you go wrong?

This birthday was ALL about NERF GUNS!

Our big brown eyed boy...Luke at 8 years old