Another Zoo Outing

Friday evening we made a trek down to Columbia, SC for a members-only zoo night. Mistakenly, we thought it would be a slightly cooler, less busy time to visit the zoo! Evidently every zoo member thought the same thing. Not only was it HOT, but it was CROWDED. Oh well, we still had a blast.

One thing we're discovering with the younger girls (9, 4 and 2)is we forget we haven't done things with them that we did with Torie and Michaela (20 and 14). On this outing we discovered that the younger girls had never ridden a Merry-Go-Round or tasted an Icee. That had to be remedied!!

I confess we saw very few animals Friday evening. The zoo was only open from 6-8 p.m., but the girls did ride the Merry-Go-Round, not once, but twice and they loved it!! (Special thanks to Torie and Michaela for riding it not once, but twice...you can see the slight blue look on their faces after going round and round that many times.)





The Icee's were another story...the girls really wanted to like them...but only AnnaGrace actually enjoyed drinking hers. After the picture, each of the girls found a trash can to deposit her beverage into.



While the little girls sipped their Icees, Torie and I just pitifully eyed the "closed" Starbucks sign...sigh.



After we left the zoo, we went back to the hotel and went swimming. The girls loved swimming after dark, and then thought it was an extra special treat to order pizza for dinner at 10 p.m. at night!








After a good night's sleep and a leisurely morning at the hotel, it was back to the zoo to actually see the animals...




Sarah Mei asking Torie, "Is that a male or female lion? And is a male a boy or a girl?" She still can't quite keep that straight.




Oh My....Look at that Gorilla!!






When Sarah Mei got tired, she took the spot in Isabelle's stroller. Isabelle thought it was great fun to try to push; however, Sarah Mei wasn't sure they were making enough forward progress.



Next we fed the Lorikeets. This was another first for Sarah Mei and Isabelle. Torie showed them how it was done!









This Lorikeet was getting a little up close and personal with Michaela.


I think Torie and Michaela were just relieved to survive the Lorikeets!!



At the end of our time at the zoo, Phil took Sarah Mei and AnnaGrace through the Rain Forest exhibit. The older girls and I just couldn't face the humidity in the exhibit with the humidity outside, but the little girls enjoyed seeing the fish!!



By 2:00, the heat chased us home, but it was another great outing and family time! We love the diversity of the animals at the zoo. Who else but an awesome God could create such an array of magnificent creatures!

Simple Living - Don't OverCommit

(This is a photo Phil took while on his mission's trip in Peru in May...God's amazing creation!!)

I'm linking up with Linny again on her Simplify Saturday. One of the easiest and yet insidiously difficult ways to simplify our family's life is to 1) Just Say No and to 2) Just Stay Home.

Years ago I read a book, Margin, by Richard Swenson, which profoundly affected my outlook on my time. Swenson is a medical doctor who decided to practice medicine only half-time in order to allow for "margin" in his life. He quotes in his book,

"Margin is the opposite of overload. (In the United States)We don't want to be underachievers, so we fill our schedules uncritically. It is rare to see a life prescheduled to only 80 percent, leaving a margin for responding to the unexpected that God sends our way." pg. 92

He goes on to give this example..."I think back to the nine years our family enjoyed on the lower slopes of the Kilimanjoaro in East Africa. There, while our work was sometimes tense, the pace surely resembled more a walk than a run. There were plenty of green trees to sit under and a conscience that allowed us to sit down under them,' comments former missionary Mildred Tengom. 'We weren't constantly being told that our value depended on how 'active' or 'involved' we were." pg. 96



Swenson recommends leaving at least a 20% margin in the areas of your emotional energy, physical energy, time and finances. Unfortunately I find, so much of the time, our family is going Mach 3 with our hair on fire, instead. It's hard to be obedient to the Holy Spirit's prompting to help our neighbor when our schedule is SO full or when we're physically exhausted because we're TOO "scheduled." (Can you tell the Lord is using this post to "remind" me of the truth again...ahem:)

We try to say "no" to over scheduling and overcommitments, so we have margin in our life.

2) The 2nd way we try to simplify our life is to just stay home. I know we are a little spoiled because we live on a really fun small family farm. (This farm is an answer to a prayer that I prayed for OVER 15 years. It's a really cool story of God's amazing, abundant provision. I think I will blog about that another day!!)

Back to simplifying...I find that when our family stays home....

we spend less money

we connect with each other by spending time together playing games, riding the horses, doing farm projects, etc;

we're not exhausted by having the children participating in multiple different activities each

we can invite other families over to the farm and enjoy their company.

Different things work for different families but simplifying for us means saying "No" to outside commitments that steal our time and keep us away from home and each other. Most importantly I pray we'll get better and better "at leaving a margin for responding to the unexpected that God sends our way."


This photo is of a sunset in the Keyes taken by friends of ours - Bill & Nadine Loftis.

Swaziland - Here We Come!

Michaela and I are thrilled that. Lord-willing, we are going on a mission's trip to Swaziland in Africa in October. (We thought we might travel to Haiti this summer but the doors kept closing and now we know why!) You may remember, back in April, when the Lord stepped on my toes...ahem...and instead of using my garage sale money to buy flowers, we began supporting a sweet little girl, Thabile in Swaziland?? To be honest, I had to look Swaziland up on a map, back then, to figure out exactly where it was in Africa.

Since that time the Lord has fanned into flame a real passion both in Michaela's and my heart for the people of Swaziland. We never dreamt we could actually travel there, but in God's providence, some doors opened and if all goes as planned, we'll board a plane on October 2nd and fly to Johannesburg, South Africa. Then we'll take an 8 hour bus ride to the Nsoko Project in Swaziland where we'll spend 10 days in-country.

Swaziland has a population of just over 1 million people in a country the size of Rhode Island. The average life expectancy is only 28 years old due to the high HIV/AIDS rate. Many children are orphaned at a young age, and the country has no formal orphanages. This leaves children taking care of children. Children's HopeChest, the organization with which we will travel, is setting up CarePoints across the country, which offer safe havens for the children to congregate and get meals, medical care and love from local pastors and full-time missionaries. We'll get to offer love and support to both the orphans and the workers while we are in-country.

Just to explain how amazing God is in providing this opportunity for Michaela and I...the ONLY time I could go on a mission's trip this entire year was October 2-11. Phil has a fall break at school, and he can be home with the 3 little girls during these dates. Because I don't feel comfortable leaving the girls unless he can be with them, I prayed that if the Lord wanted me to travel with Michaela, the dates would fall over "fall break." What are the "chances" of a mission's trip falling on those dates? With God all things are possible!!

We called Children's HopeChest and asked the dates of the Swaziland mission's trips. Of course we had to fit into a group...they don't allow individuals to travel alone. The only group with an opening, just "happened" to be based out of Atlanta and was traveling from October 2-11. You gotta love it!!

It gets even better. The team is traveling to Joyela Care Point which is located in the same geographic region as the little girl we support. So if all goes well, we'll even get to spend some time with Thabile while we are in-country. That is just icing on the cake!


Thabile


Please pray for God's provision for the travel costs for both Michaela and I. And also pray for my health to stabilize. We are believing that if God wants me to travel that all of that will come together!

Catherine Keene Photo Shoot

Sarah Mei and Isabelle have been asked to be co-Queens for the MUSC American Heart Association fall fundraiser and parade in Charleston, SC. We'll have more details to follow, but we met with Catherine Keene last night in Lincolnton, NC for a photo shoot. The AHA needs a photo of the girls for their website, so we turned to Catherine Keene to capture the appropriate "candid." We love the finished product!!




We met Catherine in 2008 after contacting her through Celebrating Adoption.

Catherine takes part in a wonderful adoption ministry, Celebrating Adoption. Within the first year of coming home with your new son/daughter, you can contact a Celebrating Adoption photographer. Participating photographers may offer different specials, but Catherine gave us a free sitting for Sarah Mei. She came to our farm and spent several hours with us. She bound all the photos into 2 small 4 x 6 books for us to keep. The only fees we paid were for extra portrait packages we ordered.

What a blessing to have such high quality photos of Sarah Mei within her 1st year of joining our family!

We're planning on having Catherine do Isabelle's homecoming photo shoot, on the farm, this fall when the temperatures cool down!

Last night we drove to Lincolnton, Catherine's hometown, just 30 minutes from our home, and she captured some images of the girls in their matching dresses. Enjoy:) And check out all of Catherine's work at her website: www.catherinekeene.com or her facebook page: www.facebook.com/catherinekeenephotography



When we were all exhausted Catherine pulled out the lollipops...

Catherine let AnnaGrace get in on the action...

My favorite photo of the evening...

Charlotte Symphony, Greenville Zoo & Platelet Counts

Friday evening the whole family went to the Duke Energy Explorium's free Charlotte Symphony Concert on the Lawn. It was a great evening for the concert. We got to the park around 6:30 p.m. and enjoyed a picnic dinner.

Three other families from church joined us. The kids had a blast throwing Frisbees, blowing bubbles and playing card games, while the teens and twenties caught up on the latest movies and Facebook happenings.

Finally around 8:15 p.m. the Charlotte Symphony began playing. Their choice of music - mostly opera- wasn't my favorite this time, but you just can't go wrong with a free outside classical concert.


Isabelle is serious about her chicken!





The weekend's fun activities didn't end, for me, on Friday!!

I missed the Saturday Simplify Post because I was meeting my sister, Terry, in Greenville. My mom graciously drove me to meet Terry in Gaffney. We shared a yummy lunch at Outback, made the hand-off and drove on to Greenville. Getting to Greenville and back home was no easy feat since I STILL can't drive thanks to my little health issue. I'm working on six months with no driving...ugh. The last time I had issues with my seizures was 10+ years ago. That time I went 6 years without driving. Let's pray I don't compete with that record!

Terry, my sister, took me to Greenville for my birthday (with Izzy too of course), and we spent a few days relaxing, watching a movie, doing a little shopping and catching up on life. Thank goodness a two year old can't repeat everything she heard...oh the stories she could tell:)

Depressing story of the weekend...when the gentleman in the clothing store asked Isabelle if she was out with her "nanna"...and yes he was referring to me...ugh!!

On Monday Phil piled the girls in the Sequioa and made the two hour drive to pick me up.

One of the beautiful things about having a large family is buying season passes begins to make a lot of sense (and cents...o.k. a little corny but I just couldn't resist). Earlier this year we went to the Columbia Zoo and discovered that for just a few more dollars than our daily passes we could buy a yearly family pass. Many zoos in the country have reciprocal agreements and Greenville Zoo is one of the them.

After the two hour car ride to retrieve me from Greenville, we treated the girls to a 1/2 day at the zoo. Despite the soaring temperature, in the 90's, we had a great time.


One of the highlights of the day was a misting station in the middle of the park. At first Isabelle was very skeptical..

However, once Phil convinced her to walk through the mister she decided it was WONDERFUL...

The other girls took the opportunity to cool off too!



We saw these vultures and immediately Phil, Michaela and I started laughing and quoting Jungle Book...

"What da you want to do"

"I da know. What do YOU want to do?"

"I da know? What do YOU want to do?"

"Don't start that again."

Some of you are just shaking your heads but if you watched the Jungle Book DVD (back when Torie and Michaela watched it was still a VHS) hundreds of times like we did, you know EXACTLY what we're talking about. Whenever we're trying to figure out what to do on a slow day in our household...yeah like that happens...we start the vulture dialog..."What da you want to do."


AnnaGrace with one of her favorite animals...

Michaela bought this shirt to help our friends, the Bryants, bring home their 7th child (3rd adoption) from China. They just got home last week with sweet Hudson. You can read about their trip at their blog http://lillymakesfive.blogspot.com/



The monkeys above were WILD and LOUD. They made a raquet the entire time we stood in front of their enclosure. We heard them as we walked all around the zoo. You can see the incredulous faces of Phil, Michaela and AnnaGrace as they watched.

Being the equestrian family that we are, the girls are always looking for something to ride. When a horse is not available, a bear will do!!



Now we're back home and sadly Sarah Mei's platelet counts are back down. We rode the wave for longer than anyone anticipated and for that we're thankful. Tuesday's hematologist appointment revealed low counts which mandated scheduling an appointment for tomorrow. If the numbers are as low as predicted, we'll be spending a few hours there for another WinRho treatment. The great news is she responded really well to the last plasma treatment! We are praying for another good response and a return to "normal" activities including riding her pony.