handsful

As of 2:15pm EST, they finished up 3 legs of the trip so far, for a total of 33 miles. They were just leaving their lunch break to go another 2 legs (each one at least 10 miles long) before they call it a day. It’s going well! I spoke to Randy around noon and he said everyone is feeling good, no problems. :)

6:50 AM…all packed and ready to hit the road. You can get regular updates on their ride at gregg’s site, he has Twitter on his right sidebar. I tried adding the link here, but it’s not working (grrrr…). So, just click the Bike Ride link on my right side bar under the heading “Favorite Sites”.

Randy, wearing the t-shirt that he designed himself and had printed up for the guys to wear…

The BIG bike ride begins tomorrow! Randy, Gregg, the five 8th grade boys in their Real Life Group (bible study), and Jacob’s dad, Phil will all ride in a van to the gulf coast early tomorrow morning. After having their picture taken with their feet in the gulf, they’ll unload their bikes from the trailer and start heading east. The plan is to go at least 60 miles tomorrow, and stay in a hotel in Gainesville Saturday night – rest and devotion time there. They’ll wake up Sunday and go another 80 miles to reach Mickler’s Landing beach – where the parents will be waiting to cheer them home while they have their picture taken again with their (tired) feet in the Atlantic :)

The course is COMPLETELY mapped out, down to where sidewalks drop off and exactly where each 10 mile rest stop will be. Thanks to Gregg! The guys have had several training rides preparing for this trip. There will be a van, driven by Chris, that will follow along with them stocked with water, gatorade, first aid, and bike supplies. He’ll drive ahead to the next rest stop and wait for them. I hope he’s bringing lots to read to occupy the time!

I’m excited for this opportunity and praying that God uses it to build these boys up and bring Him glory. What an accomplishment it will be for these guys, and a lesson in endurance. The verse for the weekend is Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” The lesson isn’t in winning…it’s in staying in the race.

I’ll be posting updates to the blog about how it’s going, and you can also follow Gregg’s Twitters on his blog – http://greggfriend.wordpress.com/

Checking out Lainey in the mirror…

This was the weekend that our adoption agency, Chinese Children Adoption International, held their semi-annual reunion.  We decided to head down to Orlando on Friday afternoon, and arrived in time to have a nice dinner at Friday’s before heading to our hotel.  With a family of 7, we’ve become too big to squeeze into just one normal sized hotel room.  So, we had 2 rooms…one for Randy, me, and Lainey and the other (across the hall) for the big kids.  It worked perfectly, and the big kids loved having their own room. 

Lainey had to jump in the picture, too!

Lainey tells her siblings goodnight.  “Eh Wo” (hello) she says while she grins/giggles. 

After a not-so-stellar breakfast bar at the hotel (it’s not even fair to compare other hotels to the White Swan in this category), we headed to the Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake.  Our day was filled with games, entertainment, catching up with friends, playing, pictures, eating…

Lainey and I listen to the speakers…Kat LeMon (director of the Florida CCAI office, who was SO helpful in getting our I-171H form to us in time for us to travel!) and Josh and Lily, the founders of CCAI. 

Lainey (the pink “backside” and her friend Cherish, have great fun picking grass. 

Most of the kids, adopted and siblings, gather for a group shot.  Josh is on the back row, not looking.  Lily is in the middle, arms around two cute little girls.  Our kids are on the right side.  Abbey is holding Lainey, then Marley, Payton, and Ethan.  Cherish is between the boys.  Her parents, Derek and Julie, adopted her a few months before we adopted Lainey.  They go to our church :)

Lainey snuggles up with Josh and Lily.  I know I’ve sung the praises of our agency before, but they so deserve it.  Josh and Lily started this agency 14 years ago, with the intent of helping a handful of families adopt children from China.  Today, they’ve placed over 8,000 children with forever families.  They truly care, and that shows with everything they do and say, right down to all of their employees.  We are immensely grateful to them. 

The day’s games were a big hit with Abbey, Marley, Payton, and Ethan.  Here, Payton dives for the finish line, right as EJ stumbles in the back.  Tough break, kid. 

Abbey places 2nd in her race. 

Payton and his new friend, Owen, run away with the win in the 2 legged race!

The winners pose for a publicity shot.

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EJ tries the golfball in a spoon race…man, this is hard. 

Lainey and I walk down the hill to see the big kids.  Well, I walk.  Lainey barrels down the hill, not understanding the danger of gravity.  Oops. 

Brushing herself off, she decides a little sliding is in order.  Marley helps out. 

Hi, dada!

After leaving the reunion, Randy was SO nice to give me something I’ve wanted for quite a while.  A trip to…

I’ve heard so many things about this place, and given the closest one to me is in Orlando, it was the perfect time.  Wow.  Huge, crowded, great prices, amazing.  We ended up staying there almost 3 hours.  It took that long to get through the whole place!  We picked up some great finds, and then collapsed into the car.  Our day ended when we pulled into the driveway about 7:30pm. 

** A post or so ago, I mentioned that Marley tried out for the pre-team at her gymnastics studio.  We got the call at the reunion that she didn’t make it.  She took it very well when we told her.  After we arrived home, I asked her about it again, making sure she was okay.  She told me “Mom, I didn’t get upset when I heard I didn’t make it because I thought of something.  My life was great before the tryout and it still is, I lost something I never had.”  That’s one of those moments as a mom that I live for…to see my daughter display so much maturity and grace.  It makes me unbelievable proud of her. 

No, those aren’t “My name is” stickers on their shirts…they’re part OF the shirt.  Classy. 

Extreme Excursion is a Jr. High weekend retreat that our church does annually.  Randy works with the Jr. High 8th grade boys, and so he went along as a cabin leader/counselor.  They left Friday afternoon and returned to the church last night for the wrap-up banquet with all the kids and parents.  They had a wonderful time of worship, quiet time, small group discussion, and outrageous games.  Ever played “spit the skittles out of the whipped cream pie”?  Ever try to see how many lifesavers you can lick and stick to your face?  Me either. 

Abbey went to EE for her first time last year, before Dad was involved with the Jr. High.  She was happy that he could join in on the fun this time around.  Randy was exhausted when they got home, and fairly well beat up!  Bruises all over his arms and sore legs.  The kids play HARD and for some reason Randy is right in the thick of it.  I know I’ve said it before…in his mind, Randy is still IN Jr. High. 

So, after putting some sunburn gel on Abbey and handing Randy the ibuprofen, they were both ready for bed.  :)

 

Remember our trip back home to NC a few weeks ago?  I forgot to tell a story about something that happened.  Actually, I didn’t really forget, I just didn’t realize it’s significance at the time. 

After we arrived in NC, and I finished up with my orthodontist appointment (no, I’ve not found another ortho. in FL!), we decided to go out to eat.  Our families all had prior commitments for that night, so it was just us.  We ended up at Red Robin and saw that it was Kid’s Night.  This meant that a guy dressed up in a big red bird costume was going to go from table to table to “entertain” the kids.  Great…our big kids were mortified thinking he might show up at our table.  Lainey had never been around any kind of dressed-up character, but knowing she has little fear of anything, I wasn’t worried. 

We ate and talked and suddenly I look beside me and there he is, just standing there staring at Lainey.  She stares back for a minute, and then it happens….she absolutely freaks out.  Think of the face you’d make if you saw someone staring at you from outside your window at night.  That face.  And she screamed, cried, reached for me, started frantically pushing her plate away and signed “all done” over and over again.  The bird got the message and left and we tried to comfort her, convince her that the bird went “night-night”, and did our “shhhh” sign with our finger over our lips.  For the rest of the night, she kept her head down unless she was looking all around for the bird…all the while showing me the “shhhh” sign like she was saying “he’s gone, right?  night-night?!?  promise??” 

Little did I know that this incident would completely turn her off to ALL birds!?!  She hates seeing birds now, even in pictures.  We were at the grocery store, unloading the groceries into the car, and a few black birds walked by.  She went into Red Robin mode all over again…well, not AS bad, but nearly.  We’re thinking of suing the place for emotional abuse.  Think we have a shot?? 

 

…than to be in Carolina.  Cousin’s Day came around once again, and this one was Lainey’s first.  She did a lot better on this long trip than the last one in April, thankfully! 

Nana arranged for a photographer to come this year, and that lady’s camera was smoking (literally…it actually overheated at one point). 

Randy took this one of the group shot…hopefully the photographer was a little more lucky.  Tough to get this many people looking at the same time! 

Love this shot of Nana

Yes, it was THAT hot.

Abbey says hello!

Lainey took an immediate liking to Nana and Paw Paw’s dog, Casey.  Could she stick that hip out any farther?

With pictures and devotion time done, Nana knew just how to make the kiddos happy…water slide!  We got Lainey changed and took her to the slide.  We told her goodbye and that mama and dada would be back.  She was so distracted by the fun, that she didn’t fuss at all.  We’re told that she did great all day, playing, napping, eating, running around, chasing the dog, eating, etc.  She slept all night, even through the crazy thunderstorm that night.  We were relieved, though I’m not sure why we were ever worried….Lainey always surprises us by handling everything well. 

The rest of our weekend was full of seeing people.  On Friday, we took the kids to my mom’s “office” (she works at a daycare) for a visit.  I’ll be adding some pics of that on a later post.  After that, we picked up lunch and took it to my grandmom’s house.  My aunt Gail and cousin Michael joined us and we had a great time, catching up and laughing at Lainey as she wore grandmom’s glasses, shouldered her purse, and held onto her cane.  I have no pics of this, unfortunately…forgot the camera.  I know, I’m still mad at myself. 

Lainey was then treated to an eye exam by her own Uncle Tony.  He told us that she has a little bit of a prescription, but nothing that needs attention right now.  He also confirmed what we suspected…her left eye occasionally (about 1/4 of the time) turns inward.  Again, he said there’s no need for treatment right now, given how intermittently it occurs.  It could go away on it’s own.  He’ll check her again in a year. 

Skip ahead to Saturday night (when the kids were at Cousin’s Day), and we had our annual triple date with Tony and Dee Dee (R’s brother and sis-in-law) and John and Kim (R’s step-sister and bro-in-law).  Beautiful restaurant, great food, and not a kid’s menu in sight.  Ahhh…

Church and then a very lazy Sunday afternoon with Randy’s mom Ann visiting us at Tony and Dee Dee’s house.  Then, it was time to get on the road. 

Lainey and her favorite optometrist, uncle Tony

Kissing cousins, Samara and Lainey

All of Lainey’s cousins enjoyed getting to know her better (the little ones high-fived her all weekend!), but Caleb took a special interest in her.  Once he found out that Lainey would eat anything, he set out to find something that she would refuse.  He never found it, but not for lack of trying. 

The NC family and the FL family…all 15 of us. 

We stopped by my mom and dad’s house on our way home…she wanted a new picture to add to her “grandmom” frame. 

An uneventful ride home (love those kind) and a great meal at Cracker Barrel (thanks, mom and dad!) and we were home.