Together

Postcards and Pictures of Place's We've Seen

2012-01-30T18:42:00.001-08:00

Just reserving blog space in January, trying to think of a new idea for a blog post.

Goodbye 2011 - Hello 2012!

2011-12-31T21:36:00.001-08:00

Goodbye 2011 - Hello 2012!

Well it's the end of another year. We have enjoyed our Christmas - New Year's vacation from work, despite a flu bug affecting 5/7ths of our family for a few of the days. Here are some photo's from the last day of 2011 - an unusually warm day spent mostly outside...

Jenna picture with the kid's new Apple I-Pad.

Group photo on the trampoline - Ben's being grumpy.

One last pony ride for Leah and Lily in 2011.

A fun pose (except for Ben).

We all fall down.

The sun sets on the year 2011 - see you next year!

An I-Pod photo by Leah.

Hello Hello! I don't know why you say Goodbye - I say Hello!

Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T22:36:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Here are some photos of the Christmas weekend. We went to Grandma Donna's house for Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we went to Christmas service and then we hosted a Christmas dinner for Cheryl's side of the family.

Here is our Christmas tree with the presents underneath and around.

A group photo of the kiddos in front of the tree.

Grandma Donna's Christmas tree, before the opening of the presents.

The children starting to open their presents after patiently waiting. You can tell they have just started because there is no mess yet.

Opening...

Ryan - the Cowboy of the future.

Porter and Jenna. This was Porter's 2nd Christmas!

Austin was there as well - clear from near Dallas Texas. Later Matthew Doll stopped by, and he came clear from Tennessee.

Our little ones - Porter, Ryan and Jenna.

Porter playing with Grandma's "town display." Santa and Frosty were there, among others.

Grandma with her Grandchildren. The only one missing is Willie.

Same thing with a few more people added in - Family Photo.

Daughters - Sisters - Aunties, Lori - Cathy - Julie.

Christmas Day at our house - getting ready to open more presents.

Opening...

Jenna the "Big Bopper."

Ryan with his remote control race car and Alex with his transformer "Bumble Bee."

Click here to see pictures from Christmas 2010, and from Christmas 2009.

The next day we had a few defective toys and our I Pad (which came with no instructions whatsoever) to return. Most of the kids spent their money they received from Ian and Lois to buy themselves another present. Ryan got this Lego "Ninjago" Motorcycle with his money and my teammates (pictured) and I assembled it that evening.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving 2011 - Christmas Programs - School Pictures

2011-11-30T10:39:00.000-08:00

Here is the Thanksgiving and beyond post that has taken me awhile to do. Not a lot of time, plus our computer's hard drive crashed so we have a new computer system that I had to figure out. Plus blogger is different so I had to figure it out. Anyway...

These next few pictures are from Thanksgiving at Mom's house. We also celebrated Porter's second birthday. Here are some cousins having fun while Cheryl rakes leaves in the background.

Here's a family photo of us on Thanksgiving.

Kobe, Ryan, and Jenna playing in the leaves.

Here's Porter and his mommy Lori, with Zoey in the background.

Porter opening his birthday presents while his father Steve and his cousins look on.

Here another family photo from the saturday after Thanksgiving, when we had a another Thanksgiving feast at our house for Cheryl's side of the family.

Here are Jenna and Ryan helping me put up the Christmas decorations.

Ryan singing with his class at the high school auditorium during his Christmas program.

Jenna was in the same Christmas program, and here she is with Ryan singing some Christmas songs for us.

Here's Leah singing with her class at the same place about a week later during her Christmas program with her class.

Leah playing her flute with the 6th Grade Band during her Christmas program.

Buddies? Perhaps. Alexander and Benjamin before their Christmas program.

The 3rd Grade Christmas program with Alex and Benjamin.

Below are our children's Fall 2011 School Pictures. Ryan is in kindergarten, Jenna is in 1st Grade, Benjamin and Alex are in 3rd Grade, and Leah is in 6th Grade...

To see earlier school photos, just click here.

On 12-17-2011 we celebrated a couple of Adoption Days, which are anniversaries of the days are children's adoptions were finalized and they legally became our children. It was Alex's 7th and Ryan's 2nd Adoption Day.

The next day the children of our church performed their Christmas program. Here are some pictures from this day...

Leah performing the Christmas Carol "Do You Hear What I Hear" in front of the whole church, as the rest of the children sang along.

Halloween 2011 - What's the Big Idea?

2011-11-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

This is the 1st blog post for November 2011. There will be a couple more - one for Fall school pictures and another for Thanksgiving, but for now here's what's been happening lately...

This is a picture of Leah's 6th Grade band concert at the high school gym. Leah is playing her flute, and is just left of center wearing pink.

This is a new 8x10 shed we assembled in our backyard for lawn machinery etc. Here we have one assembler and 4 gophers. The other assembler is taking the picture.

Here's a photo of our Fall mowing crew doing what they do best.

Getting some exercise on a warm Fall day.

Here's Mookie guarding her new home - she thinks.

Picture of completed shed.

Here's a group photo of the attendees of the Living Hope Wesleyan Church Clubhouse Halloween Party, with their leaders Lorraine and Teri and other friends.

Here's Luigi, Red Toad, and Mario of the Mario Brother's game.

Here's Princess Peach (also from Mario Brother's game)getting ready to go trick-or-treating.

Out trick-or-treating on Halloween night in grandma's neighborhood.

Here's Valley Girl Leah in the haunted garage that's nearby grandma's house.

Here's Alexander (Luigi) hangin' out in the boneyard.

This is one of the displays at Skull Creek, which is a place that really does it up for Halloween. Thousands of people visit there on Halloween night. It has gorilla's, giants, wolfman, and other scary people wandering around. This year they even had a joker with a working chainsaw (at least the noise part). They also had a garage that was a haunted maze.

A costumed group photo with their cousin Samantha, at grandma's house.

One day last week Cheryl dressed the kids up and took some group photo's - here's one of them.

Here's another photo Cheryl took on the same day of the boys wearing their Holt shirts. We got these shirts at the Holt Picnic last month. Holt International is the adoption agency that helped us adopt all of our children.

To read a post about Halloween from last year and previous years, click here.

To read a story I wrote about how we built our family through international adoptions, called "What's the Big Idea," click here.

Thank you for reading! Here are some more recent pictures Cheryl took today - below...

2011 HADSA Buddy Walk

2011-10-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it's October and time for the annual HADSA Buddy Walk at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids. We are one of the sponsors of our niece (and our children's cousin), Samantha Hebert. Here are some photos from this day...

Here we are at the entrance and Jenna and Alex say hello to their old friend McGruff, the crime fighting dog, who gave each of the kids a badge sticker.

Jenna wearing her new "Hello Kitty" fedora hat.

Jenna meets another mascot, Andy the Armadillo up around the concession area.

Here we are in the play area. They had these blow-up slides, obstacle courses, a jumping castle, as well as games and face painting. Leah and Jenna wanted to get their faces painted but the lines were always too long. They did have some fun here though...

Here's Leah on her way down the slide.

One of Ryan's many turns.

Is that a look of terror on Alex's face? Maybe not because he went down the slides numerous times.

Jenna showing us her new toothless grin. I pulled one of her top front teeth and her dentist pulled the other top three teeth, so now she's like Ryan and missing her top 4 front teeth.

Alex smiling.

Leah in the obstacle coarse.

Sisters.

Ryan trying to escape, or maybe just posing for a picture.

Alex making his way through the obsatcles.

Now it's time for the actual walk. Standing on the dugout are some of the HADSA organizers speaking to the crowd, and behind them is Veterans Memorial Stadium's baseball diamond, where the Class A CR Kernels usually play.

Here's a picture of most of this year's "Team Samantha" sitting in the stands. If you know our family you probably recognize most of them.

Heading down to the field to the "Buddy Walk."

Meeting up with "Shucks," the CR Kernels mascot down on the field. Ricochet (the CR Roughriders mascot) wasn't here this year.

Following our leaders.

Walking along the 3rd base line.

Samantha posing in front of her picture.

Looking south toward the grandstand.

Cheryl and Benjamin around the time Leah was checking to see if we won any prizes with the raffle tickets we bought. Leah won a gift certificate for Wal-Mart, and for Country Kitchen, as well as a free vehicle oil change along with another one that Cathy gave us.

The boys with Cheryl. They won the candy and Ryan's pirate eye patch over at the games.

Here's a link from a post about last year's 2010 HADSA Buddy Walk - just click here. To see a post about the 2009 Buddy Walk, click here.

Here we are visiting the Veteran's Memorial part of the park again. Benjamin, Jenna, and Ryan are inspecting the tank.

Leah, Alex, and Ben in front of the Korean War Monument. They are showing us their homeland.

Benjamin standing by a huge old anchor that's bigger than he is.

Ryan is showing us his homeland - The Philippines.

Leah, Alex, and Benjamin at the Big Gun.

A family photo without me - since I'm taking the pictures.

Afterwards we went to Grandma Foley's house as usual and had some pizza for lunch, and then we moved some rocks and Cheryl trimmed this bush. Here's she is doing her "Green Acres" pose while bangin' her rake on the ground a couple of times.

That's all folks.

Fall Begins

2011-09-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from September 2011...

This is the entrance to Greenbriar Riding Academy, where Leah takes horse riding lessons each week. The green truck is our 2001 Dodge Ram pickup.

Leah during one of her riding lessons.

Hipster Jenna showing off some of her artwork.

Here's a project that Leah and I helped Ryan with - a self-descriptive poster for his open house at school. It is hung up at school in the hallway outside his classroom. Ryan picked out the pictures and came up with the captions and did the artwork.

Here's Jenna at the 2011 Holt International Adoption Agency picnic.

Ryan spinning on the wheel.

Here's Leah with her annual picture of the "Leah Through Time" pictures. To see other past pictures of this, just click here.

The girls at the Holt Picnic.

Jenna showing off one of her temporary tattoos.

Put up your dukes! I've got Jolly Roger and Mr. Owl.

The kids taking part in a group photo.

Holt International Picnic attendees - 2011 - Iowa (Legrand).

Cheryl and Leah with our Social Worker for all 5 of our adoptions - Lisa Muntz.

Here's a tooth cap that came out of Alex's mouth while eating a tootsie roll from his treat bag.

Just a couple of group photos at the Holt Picnic - The children.

And this one is a family photo.

One Step Closer?

2011-08-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

One Step Closer?

Today (August 24, 2011) Jenna has taken her next step on her long road toward some normalcy. Jenna received her first set of hearing aids today. This comes a little over a week after Jenna receiving her first pair of glasses. According to Jenna both her sight and hearing have been improved, hopefully significantly.

Here's a picture of one of Jenna's new hearing aids.

Here is the pair of hearing aids, and the clip and string that should prevent them from falling of and getting lost or damaged.

Jenna wearing her new glasses and hearing aids.

A sideways view of Jenna wearing her heaing aids.

Jenna was born in Zhu Zhou City in the Hunan Province in China on May 12, 2004 – this was the date on her finding note, presumably written by her birthmother. Jenna was abandoned in a large park when she was 1 ½ months old. She was born with a cleft palate and a large birthmark on her right side of her scalp and neck. Jenna also has a slight deformity of her right ear lobe. Jenna was raised in a local orphanage, where she lived for over three years. Jenna has significant hearing loss in both ears at lower frequencies within the speech range, so we believe her hearing has never been normal. Jenna’s hearing may also have deteriorated due to several untreated ear infections, or it may have been another birth defect. Anyway Jenna has never passed any of the several hearing tests she has been giving since she has been home, but she is not completely deaf. Her cleft palate was surgically repaired while she was still at this orphanage. Just before we traveled to receive Jenna in July 2007, Jenna had an accident at the orphanage where boiling hot water came in contact with one of her arms and burned her, but that has since healed up well.

Jenna when she first came home.

Jenna adapted to our family relatively well. She bonded with Cheryl very fast, and was a bit afraid of me at first (as well as any man), but she eventually accepted me as her father. She got along with her new siblings very well from the start, mostly with her big sister Leah. The first problems with Jenna that we tried to deal with were her ear infections. She was treated with antibiotics and soon had surgery for her 1st set of ear tubes. The infections cleared up eventually, but she has had at least 3 sets of tubes in her ears so far. So that's 4 surgeries so far – 1 in China for her cleft palate, and 3 for ear tubes. For the past few years we have been working with the University of Iowa’s (UIHC) otolaryngology clinic for Jenna’s hearing and speech. Jenna has also received several years of speech therapy, both with a professional speech therapist, and another speech therapist at her school. In 2010 Jenna was evaluated to see where she was at with her mental and physical development, and not surprisingly she was found to be 1 – 2 years behind what was normal for her age.

So together with all of these specialists we have been doing whatever they suggested for Jenna to try to get her caught up to normal (if possible). UIHC (for whatever reason) decided to focus on her speech first. In June 2010 Jenna was to receive a pharyngeal flap surgery (read more here), but her surgeon Dr. Canady discovered Jenna had swollen tonsils and adenoids, so he removed them instead. Then a few months later Jenna received the P-flap surgery. The results were mixed. Jenna’s speech seemed to have improved and her speech therapists definitely noticed improvement, but it’s still hard to understand Jenna’s speech – so not as good as we had hoped.

So now Jenna has had 6 surgeries that we know of so far. This year Jenna has been continuing her speech therapy, but the people at UIHC decided to start focusing on her hearing problem. Her new surgeon, Dr. Kacmarynski suggested that Jenna receive an exploratory surgery on one of her inner ears to see if she could find a problem there, so we set it up (read more here). Before the surgery they gave Jenna a cat scan. From this procedure the doctor decided due to the lack of available space in Jenna’s middle ear, and the narrowness of her ear canals that she didn’t think a surgery would be helpful, so in her opinion it probably wouldn’t be worth the risk, and there was some risk. There is an important nerve that runs nearby that affects hearing and if accidentally damaged could cause some facial paralysis. So we canceled the surgery, wondering what was next.

Next was extensive testing on Jenna’s hearing and a diagnosis that audiologist thought she would be a good candidate for hearing aids. So a little over a month ago I took Jenna to the hearing aid department at the UIHC and got her fitted for hearing aids. Jenna just received them today and already we can see some improvement in her hearing, and she seems happy with them and isn’t bothered with them. Jenna has also been doing a good job of wearing her new glasses. Our son Alex also has to start wearing glasses so now everyone in our family wears glasses but Ryan and I. Hopefully now that Jenna can hear better her speech will improve significantly, enough to where she can be understood by us and everyone else that she interacts with each day. Jenna is such a lovely and sweet girl, I’m anxious to see the day when she can communicate well with everyone. Hopefully we are finally coming to the end of a long, hard road toward normalcy. Our daughter Leah had a long road (with 3 surgeries) to having normal sight, but that’s another story.

Ryan, Jenna, and Alex showing their muscles while helping me assemble their new trampoline last sunday afternoon. Alex got new glasses too but he's not wearing them right now.

Jenna and Ryan on the trampoline.

Leah on the almost finished trampoline. Later I tied down the bottom of the net and they've been jumping on it regularly since then.

Here's the crew at Taco Bell after going to their first school skating party of the year at Super Skate.

Mom's 70th Birthday!

Last saturday evening we celebrated our mother Donna's 70th Birthday. Here are some family photos from this day...

Thank you for stopping by!

July - Birthdays - Bible Camp and School - Swimming - etc.

2011-07-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with our summer. Leah has been taking horse riding lessons for the past several months at a local academy. Below is a picture of her with the horse she uses, Pal.

Benjamin and Ryan had birthdays this month. On July 12th Benjamin turned 8, an Ryan turned 6-years-old. We had 2 seperate birthday celebrations. This photo was from the first one on July 4th. We also celebrated Ian's 80th birthday, as well as Heather and Savanna's birthday.

Here's Alex and Benjamin at their cabin at Cedar Springs Wesleyan Bible Camp in Floyd Iowa. They stayed here a few days, along with Leah who was in another cabin. They had a good time being away from home for a few days. Benjamin's actual 8th Birthday fell on a day that he was here.

On July 12th, early in the morning we had a pretty bad storm at our house. It knocked a lot of branches out of our trees, including this one from a black lotus tree in our backyard. It fell on the shed but it didn't do any damage. We just had some clean-up to do.

When I picked up the 3 big ones from camp, we stopped by the Little Brown Church on the way home. The kids are standing in front of an even smaller model of the church here.

Jenna, Alexander, and Ryan in front of the praying sculpture, also by the Little Brown Church.

For a little over a week the temperatures were around 100 degrees, so on this day the kids stayed cool at sprinklers at Guthridge Park in Hiawatha. The are playing "follow the leader."

We also stayed cool a few days at a local beach at Lake MacBride. This is a sign at the entrance to this park.

Benjamin, Leah, and Alex holding Jenna at Lake MacBride beach. Ryan is in the background. Later on this week Leah and I took Jenna to University of Iowa hospital in Iowa City to be fitted for hearing aids, which she will receive next month. Hopefully they will help out her hearing and her speech.

In the last week of July all of the kids attended our church Vacation Bible School, which was about the life of Jesus growing up. On the last day of this weeklong school they brought a mobile petting zoo to our church. Jenna is getting some attention from this little puppy.

Here Jenna is playing a bride, and she is being carried in the "bride's chair."

How often can you see a camel in Iowa. This camel was part of the petting zoo. They also had a donkey, some ponies, a puppy, pygmie goats, a llama, etc.

A baby pony with its mommy.

Jenna at VBS.

Ryan at VBS.

The whole crew - students and instructors.

Here's another birthday cake for Benjamin and Ryan, but Leah is included as well. Leah will turn 11-years-old on August 8th. We had a cookout at our house today for our family, and then cake and ice cream.

Jenna with Grandma Lois.

Enjoying cake and ice cream.

Leah with Grandma Donna.

Mommy(Donna), Lori, and Cathy.

Mr. Porter McClure heading somewhere with a purpose.

Ryan heading down the waterslide.

Ryan with his new supersoaker - he's in for a surprise from Jenna.

Here the kids are preparing to sing in front of our church during their VBS Progam on Sunday.

Leah, Alex, and Benjamin relaxing on our back deck.

Earlier in the day we ate lunch at Culvers after church, which today was the children's VBS Program. Ryan was crying for some reason and a kind older gentleman approached Ryan and handed him this wooden engine to keep. We brought it home and painted it 6 different colors. So here is Ryan with his new technocolor train engine - kind of cool I think.

Catch you later!

The Last Day In June.

2011-07-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

The Last Day In June.

Well June is behind us and weatherwise it was a strange one for Iowa. Many overcast and cooler days, and lots of rain. However just in the last few days we had sunny skies and temperatures in the 90's. For the 4th of July weekend we have a 4 day weekend off from work, so I took a couple extra days off to make it 6 days, and on the last day of June the kids and I headed to the beach...

Ryan takes aim with a squirt gun.

Jenna and Ryan. Ryan did better today - the last time we came here a week or so ago he hardly wanted to get in the water, but it was a colder day with colder water. Jenna just loves to go to the beach.

The crew with Lake MacBride in the background, with their weapons or floatation devices of choice at that instant.

Surfer Alex.

Leah and Benjamin. It didn't take me long to realize that if I was going to get any decent shots I was going to have to take our camera out into the water with me. It didn't stop some people from shooting me with squirt guns and splashing me (inadvertently or not). Fortunately I forseen this and brought our backup camera along instead. This way if I dropped the camera in the water and it got damaged it wouldn't be a big loss.

Alex and Jenna mix it up.

Benjamin.

Leah surfing the non-existent waves, but it sure was a great day to be in the water.

After 3+ hours of being in the water here's the crew at leaving time. A few of them weren't too happy about it and I understand because I was a kid once too, but we were all turning into wrinkled prunes, plus we had other places to go.

I love the scenery along Springville Road in the summertime. I know just a regular picture cannot do it justice, but this is just to show there wasn't a cloud in the sky - a beautiful day.

So the kids and I went to Menard's so I could pick up a few things, then we went to Culver's to eat supper. During supper Alex asked me (somewhat out-of-the-blue - he's like that sometimes) if we could go see our Uncle Ray's grave sometime. My Uncle Ray (and the children's Great Uncle) passed away earlier this year and the children all attended his funereal with us. I asked him if he wanted to go see it after we finished eating and the kids all said "yes!" I asked the older ones (from South Korea) if they remembered when I told them about how Uncle Ray fought in a war in Korea to help defend their home country from the North Koreans and Chinese around 60 years ago, and they remembered. I said we should take this opportunity to thank him again for his service to our country, and their homeland. I also mentioned that Grandpa Dick's grave was nearby and maybe we could visit it as well.

The kids at Uncle Ray's grave.

Any time they see an old cannon the want to check it out - typical kids. The old cannons are kind of cool.

Ben wanted to look down the barrel of the cannon, so I gave him a lift.

Now it's Ryan's turn to see.

Here's what they saw, but definitely not this bright.

A couple of cool trees that we saw at the cemetery, near the old cannon. I just thought they were cool so I told Leah to take a couple of pictures of them.

This is down the road several blocks. Jenna and Ryan behind Grandpa Dick's grave, or as Jenna still affectionately calls him, "Papa."

Here's another group photo that I took after we all prayed for Dad and Grandpa.

By the resident Jesus statue.

A gateway.

So that was our day! So in remeberence...

We love you Uncle Ray and Grandpa/Father Dick!

Jenna’s Surgery – Our 14th Anniversary

2011-06-16T07:49:00.001-07:00

Jenna’s Surgery – Our 14th Anniversary

Last Monday I received a call from Jenna’s surgeon. She told me that after looking at the results of Jenna’s cat scan, and consulting with other colleagues about Jenna’s situation, they decided this surgery for Jenna probably wouldn’t be helpful to her, and might actually make her situation worse. She mentioned that the area in Jenna’s middle ear is very small, and her ear canal is also narrow. I told her that if she didn’t think the surgery would work then we will cancel – seems like a no-brainer to me. It’s disappointing, but we are ready to go on to the next step which is to get Jenna fitted for some hearing-aids, its something we wanted to avoid if possible but now it seems like the next step. At least now Jenna will be able to enjoy her summer without having to recover from surgery. Jenna's surgery post is here.

Jenna and Leah earlier this week.

Today is our wedding anniversary – Cheryl and I - 14 years! Fourteen lucky years for me. Who else has a wife who’s beautiful, intelligent, and handy? Who can say they have a wife who can help with home renovation/repair projects and also do several on her own, who works full-time in a male dominated occupation, and is a loving mother to 5 kids who adore her? During the weekdays we are a tag team, but we always enjoy our weekends with our family. We are always behind with our house work and projects, but it (and the kids) keeps us busy. When we retire we will have earned it – that’s for sure.

Anniversary Trivia…

Our 1st date was New Year’s Eve 1996. We went bowling, but since it was a special night they had the loud music and the black lights out – so it was a psychedelic date. I wish I had pictures, but it might’ve been cheesy to bring a camera on our first date. Besides I don’t think I even owned a camera at that time, which would explain why I have no pictures from these times. My parents gave us a nice Pentax camera for a wedding gift and we used it to take many of our pictures for awhile.

Cheryl was married to her 1st husband Dave for a little over 13 years, so we got that beat now. So 13 years with Dave and now 14 years with me – Cheryl has spent 27 years being married to someone!

The A&W where Cheryl used to work, also on Ellis Blvd and 6 blocks from the river.

Cheryl worked at the A&W Drive-in that was in my old neighborhood where I grew up for years. I remember her from there but she doesn’t remember me. We have known each other since 1988 when we were in the same communication electronics program at our local college. Then we both got jobs at the same place in 1990, and we eventually became friends and got to know each other well until we started going out in 1996, going into 1997.

I asked Cheryl to marry me like this (I’m paraphrasing here)… “I already know you well enough that I know I want to marry you”. I don’t remember what she said, but logically if she felt the same way then we would be married one day.

I remember our favorite dates were cheap ones, just hanging out at my old trailer and watching movies and other stuff. Cheryl helped me fix up my trailer so I could improve my chances of selling it, and I helped Cheryl fix up her old house so her husband would have to pay her more to buy her out so he could keep living there. That’s when we learned we are a great team.

Cheryl's old apartment building at 610 I Avenue. N.W., about 5 1/2 blocks from the river - after the 2008 flood.

Cheryl had a couple of horses (still has them) and I believe 4 dogs (still have dogs, but different ones). She had to keep her horses at her sister Heather’s house because she lived in the city. When she was looking for a house for us (she’s the expert so she did the hunting), it had to be an acreage where her horses could have a place to stay, as well as her dogs, and I. She found our place, and we moved in on our wedding night.

Our house (early days).

Our house (more recently)

Neither Cheryl nor I (especially I) wanted to make a big deal about our wedding, so we went the Justice of the Peace route. We each needed a witness so my sister Cathy was my witness, and Cheryl’s mom Lois was her witness. Both of our fathers invited themselves to the ceremony. It was just a normal weekday and people were working. Both of our families ate at Red Lobster afterwards.

6-16-1997 A Wedding Photo.

So Cheryl and I spent the next 14 years gradually renovating our home and property, and building our little family of seven, traveling to different countries halfway around the world to receive and bring home our children. It’s been quite a trip so far, so let’s just keep it going.

Happy Anniversary Cheryl!

One More Post for May - Memorial Day!

2011-05-30T21:22:00.000-07:00

One More Post for May - Memorial Day!

Well we received a good weather day today so we decided to do a project we've wanted to do for awhile, but first I had to help the kids play in the water to keep cool...

Sisters Leah and Jenna getting ready.

I put out the snake sprinklers for awhile, and then I brought out the slip'n'slide. Here's Ben in action!

The Foley Kids! Wet and cool.

Meanwhile Cheryl and I decided it was a good day to finally replace the sliding-glass door in our kitchen, going out to our deck.

This is a before picture of our old door. It's double-paned glass and you can see from this picture that both doors are cloudy-looking on the inside of the panes. It was so bad that you could hardly see out of them. Also the oak trim doesn't match the door well at all.

A "before" outside view.

So we tore the old door out. This involved removing many old screws and using a recipricating saw to cut through all of the old caulk that was around the whole door. We removed the sliding door and left the stationary one in the frame. We figured it would make it easier to wrestle the old door frame out of the hole, but as we did this the glass from the stationary door shattered into thousands of pieces which went everywhere. We just twisted the old frame too much to where it stressed the glass.

An outside view of the hole.

Here's a picture of the new door sitting out on the deck. Cheryl stained the woodwork of this door over a couple of days last winter.

Here's a picture of the new door installed. We still have to reinstall the old oak woodwork on this side, but it seems to match the door better this time.

Here's an outside view of the new door. The old brick moulding came off in pieces so we have to get some new brick moulding and install it around the door, then we have to reinstll the aluminum siding covers over top of this to finish it on this side.

These doors have window blinds between the double-paned glass. It's also nice to have a screen door going out to the deck again. The last screen door Leah ran into it going full-blast and basically sprung it.

So that's what we did on this Memorial Day. In rememberence of our father/grandfather, here's a link to what we did last Memorial Day. Just click here.

The day after Memorial Day Cheryl and I had the day off, but the kids went to school for their last day of this school year. Our employer took away our Good Friday holiday and added it here, which is dumb - but it's a sign of the times. After the kids came home from school it was time for more water sports on another warm sunny day. Here's a few more pictures...

Here's Jenna with Alex watching behind the spray.

Here's Leah flipping down the water slide with Benjamin looking on.

A group photo. Jenna and Ryan look pretty cold. They are both from warm weather environments and we do have cold water. The kids had fun.

I turn 49-years-old in a few days. The next post will be about Jenna's Surgery. Thanks for stopping by!

About Jenna – 7th Birthday – Another Surgery… 2 Gotcha Days … School Year Ends, etc.

2011-05-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

About Jenna – 7th Birthday – Another Surgery… 2 Gotcha Days … School Year Ends, etc.

The first thing to mention about Jenna is she turned 7-years-old on May 12th. We had a little party on that day for her with cake and ice cream, and she received her new bike. Earlier she wanted to go to the Play Station, but since it was a school night we just ate supper at a McDonalds that had a tubular playground – which I guess you could call “splitting the difference”. Here are some pictures from this day…

Jenna riding her new bike on her 7th Birthday!

Jenna with her brothers Alex and Ryan. She's wearing her birthday crown she received at school.

Jenna and Leah with Jenna's 7th Birthday cake!

As I believe I mentioned in the last blog post, Jenna has to have another surgery on June 8th. Jenna has a new surgeon at the U of I hospitals, since Dr Canady (who has performed her last 2 surgeries) has left for another job. Her name is Dr. Kacmarynski, and while she has us continuing Jenna’s speech therapy, she has decided to take another direction. Jenna has always had poor hearing and has never passed hearing tests. She has some problems hearing some lower frequencies in the audio range, and her right ear tests worse than her left ear. Dr. Kacmarynski told me that either we could get hearing aids for Jenna which could help this problem, but she also mentioned that she could surgically investigate inside her middle ear to see if she could find any problems there. The surgical procedure is called Tympanoplasty, which is a reconstruction of the ear drum and/or small bones of the middle ear (ossicles). The doctor says sometimes fibers grow around these bones (individually called “hammer,” “anvil,” and “stirrup,” and keep them from moving or working. She could free them up if this is the case. If the bones are malformed or just not working they can all be replaced with prosthesis. This procedure is called “ossicular reconstruction.” If this is what’s done then Jenna won’t be able to do any vigorous activity or playing for several weeks afterward, which I’m sure she won’t like. There are a couple of scary things to us about this procedure. The first is she will have to go under anesthesia again, which is always scary. The other thing is the doctor mentioned there is a facial nerve nearby that if it’s damaged during the procedure could cause some facial paralysis. The doctor said this isn’t common but she felt we needed to be warned. About a month ago they had me bring Jenna to UIHC for a CatScan, but the doctor hasn't mentioned anything about the results. Hopefully it was useful in some way to give her some clues to what they will find during Jenna's surgery.

Jenna’s speech has improved from her last pharyngeal flap surgery (click here) last November, but she is still struggling, mostly with getting people to understand her speech still. She can read lips OK, but if she’s turned away from us when we speak to her it’s clear she has hearing difficulties. This is all related to her years of having a cleft palate, and all of the untreated ear infections she has suffered over her first several years, which have permanently damaged her hearing. The first surgery will be done on her right ear, which tests worse. If the surgery works than she may have the same thing done on her left ear later. If it doesn’t work then we are probably looking at getting Jenna fitted for hearing aids. The main thing is we are sticking with our plan to do whatever we can to give Jenna the best chance to have decent speech and hearing, which can hopefully help her to finally catch up developmentally. Jenna is still 1 to 2 years behind in most learning categories, and now she will be entering 1st Grade where learning really picks up fast. It is a critical point in her development. Jenna is such a sweet and friendly girl, but we know if she falls too far behind her peers she will experience “shunning” and maybe be teased by the “normal” kids. We know this will sadden her as it would most anyone. So please pray for our sweet little Jenna, she has been through so much and still has a ways to go, but with God’s help we will do all that we can to make it through.

Leah with her new bike - an early birthday present so she can use it throughout the coming summer.

Leah has completed 5th Grade, and will start attending the middle/high school next fall. She has been continuing with her horse riding lessons at Greenbriar Riding Academy. Leah’s 10th Gotcha Day is May 31st/June 1st (we received her around midnight, so it’s one or the other)(click here). Benjamin’s 6th Gotcha Day is May 26th (click here). We celebrated both of these on Saturday, May 28th. Here’s a couple of pictures from this day…

Leah and Benjamin with their "Gotcha Day" cake.

Speaking of Gotcha Day's, our daughter Leah just made a post on her blog about Gotcha Days from the last year. To see it just click here.

Group photo.

Also here are some pictures and a video of Leah playing her flute at her bands Year-end Concert at the elementary school. Leah has made good progress on learning the flute this year, and hopefully she will continue at her next level, where she starts 6th Grade at the middle school.

Mr. Porter and the band.

Group photo of the 5th Grade Band!

Leah receiving a band award after the concert.

Jenna showing us how to navigate the monkey bars.

The Foley kids on the tornado slide.

Alexander and Benjamin just completed 2nd Grade and will be moving on to 3rd Grade next fall. Jenna and Ryan completed kindergarten, but only Jenna is moving on to 1st Grade. Ryan has some remedial kindergarten learning to accomplish yet. We have all of the boys signed up for some remedial reading and math each weekday for a few weeks this summer. I hope to work with all of the kids on their areas of weakness learning wise, as well as some basics such as keeping their rooms clean and picking up after themselves much better. Hopefully there will be some time for some summer fun. Lord knows we have plenty to do. This will be training for me as well – I want to learn how to be a better parent, and get some things accomplished. This is my goal for me.

Mr. Benjamin mugging for the camera.

Thank's for stopping by!

Random Thoughts In May

2011-04-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

Random Thoughts In May.

Well it's the end of April and it has been Spring for over a month. We have had many rainy and cold days so it hasn't really seemed like Spring - the grass is turning green but the tree's are still leafless for the most part. The children continue to play soccer in their school league (all of them except Benjamin, who didn't want to play this year) and most of their practices and games have been on cold and/or windy rainy days. We haven't had any extreme weather like other parts of our country, like tornados in the South, and flooding along the Mississippi River. Today Cheryl has let 3 of our 4 horses free in our backyard to eat grass. Thunder had to be left in the back pasture because he's still mean to our new horse Tuffy. Cheryl has been spliting our pasture in two with a new fence so the horses can be seperated and have equal pasture space. The kids have not been able to ride much because of the weather and the wet ground. Leah has been continuing her weekly riding lessons at Greenbriar, and Cheryl is trying to get her to be more of an outdoors child/person like herself.

We found out recently that Jenna has to have yet another surgery, this time in her right ear in June. She has always had poor hearing and her surgeon wants to do an exploratory in her right middle ear to see if she can find any problems. I will do a blog post in the near future with more details. I took her to UIHC (Iowa City) to get a catscan to see if that would give them any clues as to what's wrong, but we haven't heard anything yet. Last Sunday was Easter Sunday and we attended the sunrise service that was outside in the parking lot of our church. We went to this service because Leah was doing the reading, plus she sang a song with her friend without any musical accompaniment or amplification. Since we were sitting toward the back we couldn't really hear them. Later we went to my Mom's house, where we ate lunch and celebrated 5 birthdays - Samantha's 12th, Kobe's 11th, Zoey and Alex's 8th, and Jenna's 7th with cake, ice cream, and presents. All of these birthdays have already passed except Jenna's, which is on the 12th of this month and no doubt the subject of a later blog post. Then the kids had an easter egg hunt. I have been working my usual 10 hour days - 5 days a week trying to earn some extra money. We are being audited by the IRS for a significant portion of our tax refund - which I won't bore you with the details but we are complying with their requests. Hopefully we will be seeing more sunshine during the rest of this Spring before we head into Summer. No blog post shall be complete without pictures and videos, so look out below...

This is a chiseled picture that we had made when we were in Guangzhou, China in 2007. This was when we traveled to China to pick up Jenna. They did this picture at the 'Bug Shop' on South Street on Shamian Island. It's from 2 photographs combined - one with Leah, Alex, and Benjamin, and the other photograph was of Jenna while she was living at her orphanage in Zhu Zhou City.

This is the birthday celebrations on Easter Sunday. We have here Kobe, Alex, Zoey, Samantha, and Jenna.

This is the Guitar Band with the frontman Porter and Jenna on the drums. Lots of various music coming fom this band.

Here's Ryan during the Easter Egg hunt.

Leah giving her nephew Porter a hand during the Easter Egg hunt.

My sisters Julie and Cathy, with brother Bruce roaring (or yawning).

Grandma Donna's Grandkids.

Assuming I can count correctly, here are 19 people who all know each other and are somehow related to each other. In other words - Our Family!

Grandma Donna with her 5 kids - Bruce, Brett, Lori, Cathy, and Julie.

Here's our kids beating up on their Uncle Bruce, with myself standing to the left cheering them on.

Time for some birthday cake on Easter Sunday. As I mentioned above, here's Jenna(7), Kobe(11), Zoey(9), Samantha(12), and Alex(9). Jenna is really still (6) in this picture, but she turns (7) later this month.

Porter showing off the bling bling he received on 'Fat Tuesday", I mean Easter Sunday.

Here's Leah singing at our church, Living Hope Wesleyan on May 1st, with her friend Lexi, and Sheri on the keyboards. View the video below...

Look Ma - no hands! Jenna riding our pony Lily with an assist from Mommy, and Leah is riding Thunder. Below is a short video from our son Benjamin, the storyteller...

Here's Ryan taking his turn riding Thunder, with Leah riding Lily.

I call this one 'The Untouchables' for obvious reasons.

Thanks for stopping by again!

360 Degree Panoramic Pictures

2011-04-23T09:15:00.001-07:00

Check out these links to 360deg Panoramic Nature Pictures. Just click your mouse and drag in any direction left - right - up - down.

Sulpher Creek - Capitol Reef National Park

Doubles Arches - Arches National Park.

Payson Canyon - Nebo Loop, Utah.

Puebloan Granaries - Aztec Butte - Canyonlands.

Grandview Point in Canyonlands National Park.

Pretty cool!

Spring 2011 - Alex's 9th Birthday - School Pictures, etc.

2011-04-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my 70th post on this blog!

Well it's Spring again, so that means April Fool's Day and Alexander's 9th Birthday!

We also received our children's Spring 2011 school pictures back, and here they are...

**********For kindergarten in Ryan and Jenna's class they each receive colors at the end of each school day which indicate how well they behaved and participated in class for that day. The colors are blue = excellent, green = good, yellow = Oh Oh, and red and orange are different kinds of bad. If the little ones get all blues and greens for a whole month we buy them a toy they want. Jenna always gets blues and greens so she always has gotten a toy each month so far, but this is the first month that Ryan did as well - no yellows! Way to go Ryan! Here they are with their toys they each picked out.

It was our April Fool Birthday boy's 9th birthday last Friday, so here's Alex with his pikachu cake that Cheryl made for him (and us). Happy Birthday Alex!!!

Here's a short video of all of us singing Happy Birthday to Alex and him blowing out his candle.

The next day the kids started Spring Soccer, everyone but Benjamin who didn't want to play this year. This was Jenna's first soccer game ever, and she scored 3 of her teams 4 goals! She was having so much fun and she was laughing and giggling about the whole time she was playing. She gets right in there and gets after the ball, and she knows what to do. It's fun to watch her play.

Ryan is on Jenna's team. He scored the other goal. It was also his first game ever.

Here's Alex playing goalie for his team.

Leah's team had to play a double header, and they lost them both. The main thing is they enjoyed themselves.

On Sunday I finally assembled a merry-go-round that we had sitting unassembled in a box in our garage all winter long. The kids seemed to enjoy it OK.

It was raining while they were playing on the merry-go-round. Below is a short video of them playing in the rain...

I made a family slideshow that I've changed and updated many times. This is a family blog and you can watch our family grow right before your eyes with photos. If you have 25 minutes to view over 380 family pictures while listening to 5 cool songs, just click here.

Thank you for stopping by!

Maintenance Chronicles

2011-03-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

Maintenance Chronicles
3-21-2011

Now for a story that’s completely different. It goes without saying that when you are a homeowner of an acreage, father of 5 young children, and owner of 6 vehicles (the result of bad planning – we certainly don’t need all these vehicles) that you are going to have continuous maintenance projects. I don’t say this to complain, I say it because it’s a fact. We never run out of things to do because there is always a list of more projects that need to be done, and/or more things that need to be fixed. I could make you a list but that would make this a long and probably boring story, so this story is about a few recent examples.

One morning there was a knock on our front door. It was a weekday morning so only Ryan and I were home. Ryan was home because he stayed home sick from school that day. When I answered the door it was a guy who said he had a flat tire on his van a little ways up the road. He said he couldn’t get the flat tire off because he didn’t have the tools he needed to do the job. I asked him if he needed a star wrench to which he said no, he didn’t think that would work because the lug bolts were too long. So I got him about 4 different sizes of deep-well sockets and a 3/8” drive ratchet with an extension. He left with these and came back about 15 minutes later, saying these tools weren’t working. I asked him what he thought he would need and he said something with more leverage than a 3/8” drive ratchet provides. So I got him a breaker bar that was ½” drive (larger and longer), but I only had 3/8” drive deep-well sockets, so he would have to use an adapter to make it work. I mentioned that adapters are often the “weak-link” and often break when under major torque. So he took these tools, came back a little later saying that in fact the 3/8” to ½” adapter broke when he used it. So I told Ryan to get dressed so we could go take a look at this man’s situation. We all got into our GMC Yukon and drove the little ways up the road to this guy’s van.

This van was pulled off the highway and into a small dirt driveway by some grain bins that are across from our house and west about 1/10th of a mile. It was very muddy and sloppy around where the van was parked. It was an old cargo van that was supposed to have “dualies” or two tires on each side for the rear tires. This van only had one tire on each side, and the one on the rear driver’s side was flat. This is why the lug bolts were so long and a star wrench wouldn’t work, as he mentioned earlier. This man explained to me that he laid floors for a living. He was coming from Dubuque and heading to Kirkwood College to do a job, and he had over ½ a ton of flooring materials in the back of this van. The tires this van did have were much worn, so it’s no mystery about how he got into this situation. I told him I thought we should go into Marion, which is down the road and west about 4 miles. I recommended that we get the correct size deep-well socket, which I believe was 7/8” in a ½” drive from a hardware store. This way we could use the breaker bar and an adapter would no longer be necessary, so that’s what we did. Since the area around where he had to change the flat was so muddy and sloppy I thought there was no way the scissor jack that he had would work, so I drove us back home, loaded up some 2x4”s and our 3 ton floor jack into the bed of our Dodge Ram pickup, and we drove back to the van. After positioning the floor jack on the 2x4’s and jacking up the corner of his van, he was finally able to get the flat tire off the ground, remove it, and put the spare on. Since he had to use the breaker bar instead of the usual star wrench it took awhile. When he let his vehicle back down off of the jack we discovered his spare was dangerously low on air. So I loaded up all of the stuff I had brought over back into our pickup, and had the guy follow me home in his van so I could drag out our air compressor and put some more air in his tire. When I started up our pickup it started squealing very loud, and then started smoking. I knew that something was wrong with the serpentine belt, so I thought I would try to make it home before it broke, while the guy followed me slowly in his van. As I was backing the truck into its normal parking place, the belt broke and I no longer had any power steering. So I made it home but our truck was now out-of–commission until I fixed it again. The serpentine belt drives everything, the alternator, fan, air conditioner compressor, and the power steering pump. Next I drug our air compressor out and fired it up. I pumped up his low tire with air, and he was on his way, hopefully he finally made it to his destination.

Our 2001 Dodge Ram Pick-up.

So we use this 2001 Dodge Ram Pickup as our hauling vehicle, and sometimes for pulling our horse, and hauling trailer. Mostly we use it to haul our trash to the dump, usually once a month or so since we do not have any sort of garbage pick-up service. The reason the serpentine belt burned up is the pulley of the air conditioner compressor seized-up. Before this happened we had just had the radiator for the transmission fluid replaced, because it had a leak. So now we either had to replace this compressor, or remove the compressor and get a smaller belt. So I first tried to do the latter but I discovered it wouldn’t work because the replacement belt is too small. I discovered from our local auto parts store that they sell a bracket with a pulley that when installed can replace the air conditioner compressor pulley by being positioned in the same spot. We decided that we don’t really need air conditioning in this vehicle anyway because we mostly drive it short distances and rarely take trips with this vehicle. In fact it only can fit up to six people (it’s a quad cab) and we have seven total in our family. So I installed this bracket pulley in place of the compressor, took the smaller serpentine belt back and received a new regular sized belt. I also had to replace the belt tensioner pulley because its grooves were melted due to the old belt got so hot. I installed the new belt, recharged up the battery which went dead because it was sitting for weeks without running, and I removed the field mouse nest that was built under the air filter in the air cleaner (which smelled like mouse pee). Now the truck is back in use.

Another little incident that happened just recently is one of the kids (we believe either Jenna or Ryan, but of course neither of them would admit to it) threw something down our main floor bathroom toilet and flushed so it clogged up. This has happened about 5 or 6 times in the past, I’ve lost count. When this happens I get rid of as much water as I can by repeated flushing, then I turn off the water going to the reservoir tank and unscrew the hose. I remove the reservoir tank and the toilet and separate/remove the toilet seat cover from the toilet. I set the tank and the toilet inside our bathtub with the toilet upside down. Next I take a rubber hose and jam it down through the toilet bowl trap, and I can usually get the toy or whatever is causing the clog to come out the other side. Then I clean them up and reinstall in reverse order.

The toy that clogged the toilet.

Other things I occasional have to disassemble, clean-up or fix jam-ups, and reassemble are our televisions, DVD players, and VCR players. Most of the time I can fix these devices, but sometimes they need to be replaced. I won’t get into our computers, that’s a whole other article.

Our old "boat anchor" 36" CRT TV.

The kids playing Super Mario on the Wii.

Concert / Benjamin's 5th Adoption Day

2011-03-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

On March 15th we went to the high school auditorium to watch Leah play her flute with her school band. It was a all-school concert, so band students from 5th to 12th grade performed. Leah was with the 5th graders.

Here are Benjamin, Jenna, and Alexander in the audience.

Alex, Ryan, and Cheryl before the concert began.

Here's Leah with her band before they performed. She is directly in the middle of the picture.

Here's a video of them playing one of their songs.

The 5th Graders.

Here is the high school band. Our neighbor Kayla is in the front just right of center. She plays the flute as well and sometimes gives Leah lessons.

3-16-2011 - here's Benjamin blowing out the candle of his 5th Adoption Day cake. It has been 5 years since Benjamin legally became our son and his name became Benjamin Jae Foley.

New Blog Post - Kim, Jang Mee

2011-03-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

Our daughter Leah has a new blog post on her blog. If you would like to read it, click here. It's her first blog post since last October. She is discovering that it's easy to come up with ideas for a blog post, but executing these ideas is a another matter. Below is a recent video of me interviewing Leah...

Iowa Winter Days

2011-02-14T10:12:00.001-08:00

Well we are heading into the middle of Winter 2011 and it's been the typical freezing and snowy Iowa winter, but it has warmed up here lately. When the temperatures increase 30-40 degrees F it almost feels like Spring. Here are some recent pictures and videos...

Here's Cheryl on Groundhogs Day after a snow storm the previous night. The temperature was cold enough that Cheryl had to break up the frozen snow drifts with her shovel while I removed the snow with our snowblower.

The kids got a couple of days off of school and we didn't go to work on this day because we were snowed in and could make it down our access road until we dug ourselves out.

Here's Jenna, Ben, and Leah sledding down a small hill which actually isn't a hill, but a snow drift.

A video from this day.

Alex standing in front of our house.

On February 8th we celebrated Alex's 7th Gotcha Day. These means Alex has been a member of our family for 7 years! You may notice that Alex has chapped lips and skin around his mouth from the weather. Ryan has his Eddie Munster hairdo going on.

Cheryl, Benjamin and Ryan getting ready for a ride on our pony cart. They are on our access road.

A video from this day.

Jenna showing some of her attitude.

Here I am giving Benjamin, Jenna, and Ryan a ride on our pony cart, which had just been returned to us after having some necessary welding work done.

Leah, Jenna, and Ryan getting ready to go.

Leah, Benjamin, and Ryan playing with Mookie.

Jenna and Mookie taking a break on our livingroom sofa.

Enjoy your Winters, and GOD Bless!

A New Year - Our Country's Flags - Performances

2011-01-15T16:47:00.000-08:00

LEAH'S - ALEXANDER'S - BENJAMIN'S Flag.

A day in Seoul, South Korea.

JENNA'S FLAG.

A day in Beijing, China.

RYAN'S FLAG.

A day in Manila, Philippines.

OUR FLAG - TOGETHER.

1-1-2011 Our Dancing Girls.

Leah and Jenna dancing.

Mr. Rollipolli Man

Leah playing her flute in her first school band concert.

Leah and her bandmates playing "Au Claire De La Lune."

Jenna at her school's gym after Leah's concert.

Jenna with her friend Susan, our neighbor.

Christmas & New Year's Holidays - 2010 Closes

2010-12-30T23:00:00.000-08:00

As the year 2010 comes to a close here is one last post for this year and it's picture heavy...

This is a family photo taken by Cheryl on 12-16-2010. Included is one of our dogs, Mookie.

Ryan and Jenna showing Mookie some love (more than she wants), and the boys showing their disinterest.

This is Alex's 6th and Ryan's 1st Adoption Days on 12-20-2010. These are anniversaries of when they each legally became our sons.

Family Photo of our children - December 2010.

On December 23 & 24th we received roughly 9 inches of snow to go with the snow we already had, and here is Ben helping to clear off some of this snow.

Our Winter Wonderland - just in time for Christmas.

The kids opening presents on Christmas Eve. We are at Grandma Donna's house and it's our first Christmas without Grandpa Dick.

Here's Porter trying out the new ATV we got him for Christmas.

Ryan and Alexander playing with their new Iron Men.

Group photo on Christmas morning.

Christmas morning, 2010.

Alexander with his new Nerf Rifle and Benjamin with his Light Sabre.

Leah finally gets her new guitar. Now she is piano/flute & guitar student.

Ryan and Jenna demonstate their talents to the camera.

Alex and Ryan with 2 Bumblebee (Camaro) Transformer's.

We had Christmas dinner at our house this year and here are the kids opening more presents.

Family Photo with Cheryl's side of the family.

Our family photo.

Ian and Lois, Cheryl, and her sisters Heather, and Kristen.

Another one of our children. Ryan is grumpy.

Benjamin and Ryan doing some Boxing with the kids new Wii.

Sister's Act.

Some sledding fun in our backyard.

Benjamin showing his new Mustang remote control car, and Alexander showing his new Dodge Viper.

Our little twinkle toes - Jenna.

Sister's Act II.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

***************************************
Stats (since May 2010) Number of pageviews of my blogs....
Together 4,096
What On Earth (politics & religion) 34,673
Stories (since Oct 2010) 395
Journey to Ryan (The Philippines) 2,294
Journey to Jenna (China) 2,610
Journey to Benjamin (South Korea) 561
Journey to Alexander (South Korea) 692
Arrival of Leah (Des Moines Airport) 217

Interesting to me anyway - there is one post on my "What On Earth" blog that in 6 months received 7,774 page views, which is a lot. You can view it by clicking here if you are interested.
***************************************

A Day In My Life

2010-12-04T11:16:00.000-08:00

A Day In My Life

This is a post about something I haven’t done on this blog before with any of the previous 61 entries. It’s about a typical day in my life. Every day isn’t exactly the same as this day, but it isn’t unusual either. It’s Wednesday, December 1st. This day (like most weekdays) started at where I work – Rockwell Collins. I worked my 2 extra hours of overtime, and then at 2:30 a.m. I left and drove to the Marion Wal-Mart. I bought some winter hats and gloves for the kids because it has finally gotten cold enough for them to really be necessary. The weather had dropped down from the high 30’s to 10 – 20 degrees with a cold wind from the Northwest. This is what is known in Iowa as a “cold snap”, but will soon probably be known as “normal”. There was some snow but not enough for accumulation (the first snow accumulation of the winter would happen a couple of days later). I arrived home at around 3:30 a.m. and kissed Cheryl goodnight. She had just awakened to get ready to go to work 2 hours early. At around 3:45 a.m. I went to bed.

I woke up to my alarm at 6:50 a.m. after 3 hours of sleep and woke all of the kids up to get them ready to catch the bus for school. They dress themselves except for Jenna and Ryan usually need some help. I brush Jenna’s hair and wet Ben’s crazy hair so it lies down, and then I brush his hair. I ask them if they want anything to eat for breakfast and they all decline this morning. They are watching a SpongeBob cartoon on Nickelodeon, and I’m watching it with them. As the kids are putting on their coats I give them their new hats and gloves and tell them to make sure they keep them in their backpacks when they aren’t wearing them (they might do it – sometimes). They all did a good job of getting ready to go, and at 7:40 a.m. we are all out the door and walking down to the end of our access road where their bus will pick them up at 7:45 a.m. After I make certain they are loaded on the bus I walk back home. I called the school office to let them know that I needed Jenna to be up at the front desk at 11:45 a.m. because I had to take her to a doctor’s appointment in Iowa City. Then I went back to bed for a few more hours of sleep.

I woke up to my alarm for the second time at 11 a.m. or so and quickly got ready to go pick Jenna up at school and drive her to her doctor’s appointment. I arrived at the school office but Jenna wasn’t there yet. The school secretary called down to Jenna’s kindergarten room and her teacher said Jenna was still getting ready and would be here shortly. I looked into the cafeteria and Leah, Alex, and Benjamin were all there eating lunch. They all saw me and waved at me, and Leah came up to give me a hug (that’s Leah). Soon Jenna arrived and I signed her out of school for the day and we were on our way. When we reached Marion I stopped at the drive-thru at McDonalds because neither Jenna nor I had eaten lunch yet, so I got Jenna her chicken nuggets happy meal and some hamburgers for myself. Then we drove the 35 miles to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital in Iowa City. This was for Jenna’s first check-up since her surgery last month with her surgeon, Dr Canady. We parked in Ramp 4 on the third level and walked to the 2nd floor skywalk, with Jenna riding on my shoulders. The appointment was at the Pomerantz Pavilion at the Otolaryngology Clinic on the 2nd floor.

We checked in at the front desk at 1 p.m. and waited to be called, which happened after 5 minutes or so. A nurse took Jenna’s height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate and all was OK. Then we went back to see a doctor and he had Jenna open her mouth wide and with a tongue depressor and a flashlight he looked to see how Jenna’s new pharyngeal flap was doing, and her throat in general. Next he looked in each of her ears and noted that one looked fine but with the other ear the tube was no longer in place and was just hanging there. So he later just removed the tube and let Jenna see what it looked like. He set up a microscope to take a close look at Jenna’s eardrum in this ear and he said it looked good. Next the doctor had Jenna say a few different sentences and noticed improvement. He left and told us Dr. Canady would be in shortly. Dr Canady soon came in and shook my hand in greeting. He asked Jenna to repeat a few simple phrases, which she did timidly. He sat down in front of Jenna and touched her nose to turn on his light headband that he wears and he examined Jenna’s throat as well. He said things look really good, the swelling had gone down and there was one stitch left that will eventually dissolve. He asked me my impression of how Jenna’s speech was progressing. I said we still have some difficulty understanding her speech but she no longer speaks so nasally like she did before. He said that was good and that he notices a difference as well. He mentioned that in a way Jenna has to relearn to talk with many elements of her speech, but since she is having an easier time making the necessary sounds he thinks her speech therapy should have good results. Dr. Canady then told me to continue Jenna’s speech therapy and he will see her again in March to see how she further progresses.

So now we are on our way home with me walking and Jenna riding on my shoulders. Many of the people that we pass on the way out smile at Jenna because she is so happy riding up there. It’s just past 2 p.m. and we are driving toward home, but Jenna wants to stay awake so she can make sure I don’t forget about stopping at Wal-Mart to buy her a toy like I told her I would. Soon enough we are inside the Marion Wal-Mart in the toy department and Jenna already had a toy in mind that she saw in a commercial the other day. Soon she found it – a Baby Alive doll. It cost a little more than I wanted to spend, but as Cheryl would tell you I have a hard time saying “no” to my Jenna. We drive the remaining 6 miles home and soon we are there and I’m removing Jenna’s new doll from its packaging. A little later the rest of the kids come home from school and Cheryl arrives home from work. It’s now around 3:20 p.m. and time for me to go to work again. I receive my goodbye kisses and hugs and I drive to work. Rockwell-Collins is just inside of Cedar Rapids and it’s where I work each day, and it’s where I end each weekday.

This is a day in my life.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
OK since there are no pictures in this post I decided to add several that Cheryl or Leah took at our children's school Winter program, that was on December 2nd.

A group photo taken by Cheryl.

One more group photo.

Alexander and Benjamin with their 2nd Grade Teachers, Mrs. Sanders and Mrs. Wittenburg. Photo taken by Leah.

Jenna and Ryan performing with their kindergarten class - for the masses.

Alexander and Benjamin performing with their 2nd grade class.

The next blog entry will probably be about the children's program that the kids will participate in at our church next week.

November 2010 - Fall School Picture's - Porter's 1st Birthday - Etc.

2010-11-21T22:15:00.000-08:00

Well our children received their Fall School Pictures back this month and we are happy with how they turned out. Here they are below...

Lovely Leah. Leah is still 10-years-old and attending fourth grade.

Handsome Alex. Alex is still 8-years-old and attending second grade.

Handsome Benjamin. Ben is 7-years-old and attending second grade.

Beautiful Jenna. Jenna is 6-years-old and currently attending kindergarten.

Suave Ryan. Ryan is 5-years-old and currently attending kindergarten.

Here's our nephew Porter McClure at his 1st Birthday Party! He is providing the entertainment himself.

Hello, I'm Porter - Porter McClure. I am 1-years-old today!

Porter unwrapping his presents while his parents, cousins, and others relatives and friends look on.

Here's Porter's 1st Birthday Cake!

Singing Happy Birthday - Papa Steve, Friend Myra, and Mama Lori, and everyone one else who are not in this picture.

Resident pets Ollie and Zeus in action. Benjamin was keeping them busy by slinging them a tennis ball many times.

Here's our kitty-kat Jenna getting a lift from her big sister Leah.

Jenna says - See you next time!

Jenna Surgery - Part 2

2010-11-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

Back in September I took Jenna to the University of Iowa Children's Hospital so she could receive pharyngeal-flap surgery to help with her speech. They couldn't do the planned surgery because Jenna's adenoids were enlarged, so they removed them and her tonsils instead. There was a couple of months of recovery time from this surgery before she could be rescheduled for the P-Flap surgery again. On Novemeber 2nd (Election Day) we returned to U of I Hospital for the surgery.

To read the original post, click here.

On the day of the surgery it was supposed to be done at 11 a.m., but it was moved back until 2:30 p.m. so Jenna had to fast for 3 hours longer. Just before Jenna went in for surgery (at 1:30 p.m.) our Pastor, Dale Holloway arrived to pray for Jenna. I wasn't allowed to go back with Jenna while she was put to sleep like usual. The surgery lasted for a couple of hours and then Jenna's surgeon let me know that Jenna's surgery went well. I stayed with Jenna in recovery for about 45 minutes and then they moved her to her room on the 2nd floor, room 2362.

Here is Jenna after the surgery. She is such a strong girl that she hardly cried at all although she was sometimes in pain. We tried to keep her pain-free but she wasn't communicating much - it hurt for her to talk. She had tubes going through her nose down the back of her throat to help with her breathing. The next morning she woke up before I did and she was crying because her IV came out and she was bleeding from this. The nurses cleaned this up and reinserted a new IV. After Jenna received more morphine she was OK. Doctors came and checked on Jenna a few times during the day and they all said that things were looking good.

Here is Jenna playing in the toyroom nearby. This was after we took a long walk around the hospital exploring and getting some reprieve from cabin fever that we both had from being in the room for too long. Just before I took this picture the doctors found us in this room and decided to remove Jenna's nose tubes. One of them had already been slipping out so they felt any swelling may have already gone down enough. Jenna was happy to say goodbye to the nose tubes. Jenna was also drinking enough so the nurses thought the IV was no longer necessary. Jenna recovers quickly.

Here's Jenna standing by the message board in her room. We are ready to go home.

The reason and the purpose of Jenna's pharyngeal-flap surgery: Jenna was born with a cleft palate that was repaired while she was still living in China. Her new palate doesn't have the range of motion of a normal palate. As a result her airway between her nose and mouth doesn't close off when she makes certain sounds as it should. So when Jenna speaks often the sound goes out of her nose and not her mouth as is necessary which makes her speech more difficult for others to understand. When Jenna speaks with her nose plugged, or when she has a stuffed-up nose her speech is much easier to understand. During the pharyngeal-flap surgery a piece or flap of tissue was removed from Jenna's throat and attached across the airway between her nose and mouth. This should make this airway easier to close for Jenna when it should for certain sounds, making it easier for her to annunciate her speech, yet it doesn't close off the airway completely so she can still breath through her nose. Normal speech won't happen overnight, it will require continued speech therapy. Jenna will have to discover what her new "normal" is now.

Kinnick Stadium - Home of the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Thank you for your acknowledgement and especially for all of your prayers for our precious Jenna. Hopefully this post qualifies as an adequate update.

Halloween: Past and Present, 2010

2010-11-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Halloween Past & Present.

I thought it would be fun to show some recent Halloween pictures, and then go gradually back in time to Halloween's past - picturewise...

Last night at Grandma's house with cousin Samantha. We have 2 Iron Men Alex and Benjamin, Seniorita Leah, Kitty Cat Jenna, Werewolf Ryan, and Doctor Sammy.

At home and unmasked - Ryan, Benjamin, Alexander, Leah, and Jenna.

Halloween 2010. First to Grandparent's MacFarlane's house, then to Grandma Foley's neighborhood.

Halloween 2009 at Grandparent Foley's house. Ryan the Lion, Princess Jenna, Transformer (Optimus Prime) Benjamin, Anakin Alex, and Dancing Leah.

Halloween 2008 - Another Chinese Princess Jenna, Batman Benjamin, Clown Alex, and Leah is some High School Musical character.

More from 2008 - Princess Jenna with Grandma Lois.

Halloween 2007 - This is Jenna's 1st Halloween. Jenna's a kitty, Leah's a Cheerleader, Benjamin's the Lion this year, and Alex was another Clown, along with Cousin Samantha.

Halloween 2006 - Alex is Winnie the Pooh, Leah is a Princess Bride, and Benjamin is Tigger.

Leah and Samantha - Halloween 2005.

Another one from Halloween 2005 - Spiderman Alex and Clown Benjamin.

The kiddos with Grandparent's Ian and Lois - Halloween 2005. This was Benjamin's 1st Halloween.

Halloween 2004 - Princess Leah and Kitty Cat Alex with Grandpa Dick. This was Alexander's 1st Halloween.

Halloween 2002 - Leah was a Kitty!

Halloween 2001 - Leah's 1st Halloween, and she was a bunny, here with her cousin Samantha the Cat.

To see a post about Halloween 2009, click here.

In two days, on Tuesday, November 2nd Jenna has to have another surgery, this time to do the P-Flap surgery they intended on doing last time but removed her tonsils and adenoids instead. Please pray that it happens and the surgery is successful - Thank you!

Ryan's Day

2010-10-30T23:53:00.001-07:00

Ryan's Day

On Saturday, October 30th we traveled to a farm near Knoxville, Iowa in the south/central part of our state for Ryan's COC Ceremony (Certificate of Citizenship), which makes Ryan a citizen as recognized by every government agency. Essentially it's the final step in an adoption process for international adoptions. It's a big day for Mr. Ryan and for our whole family and it was a beautiful day as well. Here are some pictures...

The ceremony was in a horse barn and we all sat on bales of hay. It was a Halloween themed ceremony which is why the presenter in this picture is dressed like a clown. Here Ryan is receiving his COC.

Ryan showing his COC while sitting with mommy and Jenna.

Ryan posing in front of the flags with his COC.

The children standing in a play pen of corn kernels.

Another group photo of our silly kiddos.

Here we are on one of our hay rack rides.

Here's Benjamin and Leah holding a couple of new kittens who seem to live under the concession stand.

Say hello to my new friend.

Jenna Baby and Ryan, with Benjamin trying to figure out how to get the old tractor moving.

Of course it can't be a Halloween-themed farm with out pig races.

Checking out Ryan's current measurements. Seeing how he measures up.

Here's Jenna sliding down this weird slide they had at this farm that was made of wood and pvc piping. The kids seemed to enjoy it enough to take several trips down this slide. We are thinking of building one going off of our back deck at home - seriously.

Alexander's turn as Ryan looks on.

This farm also had a haunted corn maze. Here the kids are posing with one of the monsters. It would be interesting to see what they do with this at night.

Now is this an Iowa photo, or what?

We stopped at the Dairy Queen on the way out of Knoxville, and here is Jenna with an ice cream smile. They had a little playstation at this DQ so the kids had some more fun before we continued home.

Tommorrow is Halloween so I plan on another post for that occasion. See you soon, and congratulations Ryan!

R.I.P. Ty-Bo - Old Pets - New Pony

2010-10-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of our most current dogs. Chase is the Boxer, Libby is a Black/Tan Coon Hound, and Ty-Bo was Pug/Bichon mix. The reason I say "was" is Ty-Bo is gone since the other day, another victim of U.S. 151 (hit by vehicle going 65mph). Farewell Ty-Bo (or as Jenna used to say "asshole").

This is a picture from May 7, 2007, which shows Leah, Alex, and Benjamin. The dogs are Libby, Ben's holding Cubby, a Schipperke, and Teal'C, our Golden Retriever mix, who died just last Summer of old age. Cubby met the same fate as Ty-Bo (hit by vehicle), but back at the beginning of 2008. This is why we have a fenced in yard, but sometimes the dogs get loose. Both of the dogs we have now, Chase and Libby can easily jump over our 4' fences so they have to either be chained up, or be inside the dog pen (shown in the first picture) which has 6' fences, when outdoors.

Here is Dawn (a Dobermann Pinscher) and Rachel (a greyhound). They were great dogs we had for years that we could let run loose in our yard and didn't have to worry about them running onto the highway. They both died in 2006 from old age. We called them "sisters" because they were companions to each other and very good with our children.

Here's Leah when she was 2, with our 2 horses Thunder and Shilo (Appaloosa's). This is in April of 2003.

Leah again taking a stroll with Dawn in our back pasture. Thunder and Shilo are dots in the background.

Leah at age 2 with her buddy Rachel.

Here is a new pony for the kids, named Lucy. Leah is making a blog post about Lucy so you can read about her if you click here.

October 2010 - Buddy Walk

2010-10-09T22:48:00.001-07:00

So it's been a month or so since I've posted to this blog so here are some more pictures from the Fall of 2010...

Time for another hay bucket picture with the kiddos.

Here's Benjamin with our house in the background.

Sisters!

Here's our nephew Porter (Lori & Steve's son) at the 2010 Buddy Walk on 10-9-2010.

Here's Porter walking with Grandma Donna. The Buddy Walk is a fundraiser for Down's Syndrome children, that is usually held each year at our Veteran's Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids.

Team Samantha lounging in the bleachers before the Buddy Walk around the ballfield.

Jenna, Porter, and Zoey - cousins.

Team Samantha during the walk around the perimeter of Veteran's Memorial Ballfield. Home of the Cedar Rapids Kernels.

Leah posing with the mascot of our local hockey team - Ricochet!

And here's the mascot of the CR Kernel's - Shucks!

The kids clowning around with Ricochet.

More Ricochet.

The kids posing for a group shot just before we left the stadium. Ryan is upset because he accidentally let his balloon go and it sailed away.

Since this is a veteran's park it has War Memorials and old military vehicles and planes. Here the kids are posing on an old mobile cannon.

Now they are visiting an old M48A1 Tank.

Jenna setting her sites on the target.

Here is our nephew Willie, who's 17th birthday was just last month, and we celebrated it with him today at Mom's house.

Here is Ryan and his girlfriend, um, I mean cousin Zoey.

Here's Benjamin with his little clubhouse shack that he put together by foraging his surroundings.

Kobe(our nephew)also built himself a clubhouse.

Group photo from this day, not including myself since I took the picture (because I forgot how to get my camera's self-timer to work). Lori also took pictures but she used her remote - so she's in the picture.

Lori,Cathy,and Donna(Mom).

A strange hitch hiker perhaps - Mr Blue?

One last silly sister picture on the ride home.

Once again, thanks for stopping by!

If you would like to see pictures and read about last year's Buddy Walk - 2009, click here.

Leah's Blog - Jenna's Surgery

2010-09-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

Leah's Blog.

Our daughter Leah, who just turned 10-years-old last August, has started her first blog. It's title is "Kim, Jang Mee = Kind Shine - The Life and Times of Leah". This title represents her Korean name and its meaning.

So If you would like, you can check it out if you click here.

Our daughter Jenna (seen singing on the left in the photo above) had her tonsils and adenoids removed at the U of I hospital last Thursday. I took her there on this day for her to get a pharyngeal flap surgery, which has an 80% chance of improving Jenna's speech significantly (according to her surgeon - Dr Canady). When he was doing the surgery the doctor discovered that Jenna's adenoids were very swollen to the point they would interfere with the positioning of the flap. So they told me the best option was to remove her adenoids and tonsils, allow them to heal for 6 weeks, and then to do the P-Flap surgery - so that is what they did. Now Jenna is facing another surgery in 6 weeks, but there doesn't seem to be another option. If all of the surgeries are successful I'm sure in the long run it will all be worth it. It only took Jenna a day or so to recover from the 1st surgery, but she is on a soft food diet which she's not too crazy about (and I don't blame her).

Next week Cheryl and Leah are getting Baptized at our church (Living Hope Wesleyan Church), and so that will be the next post.

August 2010 - Leah's 10th Birthday, The ZOO, etc.

2010-08-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

And the Summer of 2010 continues...

Here is Ryan wearing his shirt that he received from his foster family in the Philippines, along with a card for his 5th Birthday! Ryan is always very excited to hear from Mama Nora, Papa Inting, and Kuya's Yul (Pao Pao) and Al Al. Cebu is the island in the Philippines that is Ryan's homeland. If you would like to see a post about what Ryan received in the mail last year from his foster family, click here.

Here's our new kitty that was abandoned by somebody. Introducing Simon.

Here are a couple of surfer dudes and a basketball player - Alex, Benjamin, and Ryan.

Our first child to reach the double digits - Leah turned 10-years-old on 8-8-2010. Here she is with a cake mommy made for her (us) and Ryan & Jenna.

Jenna, Leah, and Simon.

For Leah's birthday this year we decided to head east a ways down U.S. 151 to Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison Wisconsin. The rest of the post includes pictures from this day. I will spare you pictures of the live animals (of which I took many) and post pictures of the kiddos instead. It was a nice day and the weather was fine.

Jenna, Cheryl, and Ryan - The Orangutan's. We saw some real ones as well.

Benjamin, Jenna, and Ryan see how they measure up to the Cat family. They have both a male and a female Lion here, which makes sense.

We saw Polar Bears and Black Bears, and even Bear seats.

There was a Tiger in the neighborhood. I had to include a tiger picture because I was born on the year of the Tiger.

Ben, Ryan, and Sweet Jenna visiting the painted Turtles.

The Zoo had some Giraffes too. Here's Leah posing by the puzzle Giraffe statue.

Jenna and the Musical Giraffe.

Here's Zookeeper Benjamin, Lion Jenna, and Monkey Ryan.

The kids all seeing how they measure up to a wooden 9-foot-tall Polar Bear. You can't (and don't want to)get close to the real one.

Riding along on a carousel trying to catch up to you.

Here's Ryan waiting for a train ride with mommy.

Here is Leah up in the Tree Playground. As you probably guessed it's not a real tree, but made of cement. I touched it to make sure it was something durable before we let the kids play there.

Benjamin and Jenna - our little Marsupial's.

Ryan and Alexander.

Jenna and the Technicolor Penguin. The real Penguins were hiding on this day.

Homespun Quality Yarn - Sheep - Get It!

That's all for this post. The Summer vacation is over on 8-18-2010 which is just a few days from today. The kids return to school. Leah will be entering 5th grade, which means she's a senior of elementary school. Alex and Benjamin will be entering 2nd grade, and Ryan and Jenna will be attending full-day kindergarten. I (Daddy) will hopefully be getting more sleep.

Summer Continues - Jenna's 3rd Gotcha Day

2010-07-31T22:26:00.000-07:00

Jenna, Ryan, and Alex wearing their Jesus caps.

Here is Leah with some friends at Bible Camp up in Northern Iowa. She also attended a 1 day Holt Camp further away up north.

Here's Alex doing some slipping and some sliding.

Jenna and Ryan take a turn.

It's Leah by 1/2 a body length.

On July 16/17th it was Princess Jenna's 3rd Gotcha Day/Adoption Day. What this means is now Jenna has been a part of our family for 3 years now!

Here is Jenna with her Adoption Day chocolate cake that Cheryl made for her and us. If you would like to read about Jenna's original Gotcha Day click here. To read about her original Adoption Day, click here. Below is a picture from that day...

Jenna's Footprint - Adoption Day - Changsha/Hunan Province/China 7-17-2007.

Crazy Benjamin and Leah.

Getting ready to do some horseback riding with our horse, Thunder.

Miss Leah and Jenna.

Alexander rides Thunder.

Here goes Ryan!

Jenna signals that she's ready to go.

Leah rides Thunder solo.

Benjamin rides the rubber horse after his ride on Thunder.

I was looking through some old pictures and I decided to add a few here...

Here's Leah when she was 3-years-old, just before we received Alex. She is riding her rocking horse under her 'land of the morning calm' quilt, which represents her homeland South Korea. Eight days from today Leah will turn 10-years-old.

Alex is 2-years-old here. He has Norm, the hay guy's tractor behind him and it looks like he means business.

Here we are in 2006 and this time I'm the horse.

You Say It's Your Birthday!

2010-07-11T21:12:00.001-07:00

No it's not Jenna's birthday again already. I just put this picture here because it's cute. No actually on Monday, July 12th Ryan turns 5 and Ben turns 7. They have the same birthday but 2 years apart. Leah will turn 10 on August 8th. Until then we have a 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9-year-old. We had a party for them with family yesterday at Mom's house.

Another sideways glance from Jenna.

Here's where the boys bedroom is at and it's almost done. Just need to put the closet doors back on and we have restained their new (used) oak bunk beds plus another matching bed.

Here is my sister Cathy, my Mom, and niece Samantha. Mom just had hip replacement surgery last month so we moved the birthday party to her place.

There are 2 Ryan's in this picture - how often does that happen? Here's Ryan, Mom, brother Bruce, Cheryl's sister Heather, niece Ryan, Ian and Lois (Cheryl's parents).

Here is Ben and Ryan's funky prehistoric cake.

Ben, Ryan, and Leah waiting to blow out their candles.

Ryan with one of his presents.

Stylish Leah surrounded by new clothes.

Machine Gunner Benjamin.

Here's Alexander the Great and his Ragtime Band. The kids went to vacation bible school this past week and the theme this year is High Seas Expedition.

Jenna, Benjamin, Alex, and Jenna on the bridge at our church (Living Hope Wesleyan) for the High Seas Expedition program.

Doing some singing and dancing for the Lord.

Here's the crew, on a ship rocking with the waves as the program continues.

Here is a group photo of everyone who was involved with the Bible School. The kids had a great time! Coming up next week - Leah goes to Bible Camp for 4 days, and next Saturday is Jenna's 3rd Gotcha Day!

Miss Leah goes to Bible Camp.

Mohawk Chronicles

2010-06-20T15:55:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in the last post, Alex has been wanting a mohawk haircut and Cheryl told him she would give him one if we could get some decent family pictures first. Well in the last week or so Cheryl has taken literally hundreds of pictures of the kids (that's why there are so many group shots in these last couple of posts). So today Alex finally got his mohawk. I would've gotten a mohawk as well but I have a hair shortage.

Here's another group shot - such enthusiasm!

Leah and Jenna.

A "Space Dome" photo.

Mr. Alexander receiving his mohawk.

Here's another picture of Jenna. I may be biased but isn't she beautiful!

Here's one of the "Buzz BoyZ".

Here's our new brush mower that we needed for our horse pasture.

Mr. Mohawk.

Summer 2010 - The Beginning

2010-06-15T11:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from summer's beginning..
.
Ryan, Jenna, and Leah before hitting the sprinklers in our backyard.

Leah doing her monkey immitation at Noelridge Park

Jenna, Ryan, and Ben attacking the prehistoric monster.

Ryan and the boys playing on the Banzai water slide in our backyard.

OK - Do what I do.

A recent group picture of the kiddos.

Leah and Jenna - sisters forever.

Here is a picture from our 20th Anniversary Reunion of graduating from the Communications Electronics program at Kirkwood College. It was at Doug's Ranch. Doug was one of our instructors. There were 3 instructors Bill, Doug, and Darrell, 5 students - Mike, myself, Cheryl, Judy, and Lorraine, and 5 kids present. Darrell took this picture.

Here are the kids on one of Doug's old tractors (he has restored several of them). The kids all got rides on this tractor and even got to steer.

Ryan driving the Oliver with Doug.

Mister Ryan giving me a quizical look.

Here's Benjamin driving Darrell's Allis Chalmer's tractor with Darrell. My dad used to help build tractors like these when we first moved to Cedar Rapids in the early 1960's

Here's a baby robin's nest on Dougs Ranch.

Me and my princess Jenna.

Later that same day we visited our nephew Porter - Mr. Bright Eyes.

Dancing with my nephew Porter.

Porter hopping around and checking out his cousins.

Cheryl and her cuddly boy Ryan.

Group picture with some friends. We have here Troy, Benjamin, Ryan, Nicolas, Lucy, Thomas, Quinn, Anna, Leah, Alexander, and Jenna.

Playing on the Ace Flyer.

Rain Run on the back deck - occasional and cheap entertainment.

Memorial Day - Gotcha Day's - etc.

2010-06-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

These pictures are from Memorial Day weekend. Leah's 9th Gotcha Day fell on Memorial Day this year. It's been 9 years since we received our precious daughter Leah at the Des Moines airport at around midnight, and so we have been parents for 9 years. We also celebrated Ben's 5th Gotcha Day recently.

Here are the kids in front of the Jesus statue at Mt. Calvary cemetary, where my father is buried.

Here is my father's gravesite on around Memorial Day.

Leah with her Gotcha Day cake.

The new parent's and my sister Lori with baby Leah at the Des Moines airport 5-31-2001.

Leah with Ryan and Jenna.

Read about Leah's original Gotcha Day right here.

Here are the kids sitting on our new under-the-deck swing. We replaced the old 4 foot one with an oak 5 foot swing, and put the old swing in front of our house.

Ben's 5th Gotcha Day with his strawberry cake that Cheryl made for him (us).

Here are Ben and Cheryl on the first day we received Ben. We are at Holt's Old Guesthouse in Seoul, South Korea.

To read more and see more pictures about the day we received Benjamin, his 1st Gotcha Day, click here.

Here is one picture from my 48th Birthday.

Jenna's 6th Birthday - Alex's 8th Birthday - Easter - Teal'C - etc.

2010-05-12T20:05:00.000-07:00

Today was Jenna's 6th Birthday! Here are some pictures from today...
Jenna wearing her birthday hat from preschool.

Yes, our girl is 6!

Benjamin and Leah enter the picture with the Birthday Girl and her cake.

All I can say about this picture is everyone seems to be napping except Alex.

Here's Jenna with her next birthday cake.

Leah relaxing in front of our house.

Jenna and Ryan's first time skating (on Alex's 8th Birthday)!

Ryan skating.

Here's Benjamin - Our Lethal Weapon!

Here's Alex who just turned 8, with his new bike he chose.

Here's a group photo on Easter Sunday, at Grandma Donna's house.

Alex hunting for some Easter eggs.

Ryan showing us his haul.

Smiling Alex.

Here is Alex with one of our dogs, Teal'C from around a year ago. Just before my father passed last March 16th,click here, Teal'C passed a couple of weeks before. Rest In Peace Teal'C.

Last and certainly least - one from the vault - THE SPIKE BROTHERS!

Ryan Photos

2010-04-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some attempts by Cheryl to take some photos of Ryan for his COC (Certificate of Citizenship).

Ryan is 4-years-old and is a preschooler. He will turn 5 in July and he asks me everyday how soon will this time come.

Going Back

2010-04-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

Dad and Magi sitting in their favorite spots - 1989.

In 1967, when I was 5-years-old my family moved down the street to this house in the Timecheck Neighborhood of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My parents lived here up until 1998, when they moved to their current home in Cedar Hills (CR). In June of 2008 this home was destroyed in a massive flood. Now we return to visit one last time before this house is demolished...

At K Ave. and 4th Street, our old house - minus the grey slate siding. I remember Lori said she could visualize dad sitting on the porch.

My sisters Lori, Julie, Cathy, and my brother Bruce on the front porch.

Looking back to where the garage was, toward the Cedar River. You can see Quaker Oats in the background, which is on the other side of the river.

The back entrance to the house.

The Dining Room.

The TV room. You can see that the waterline almost reached the ceiling.

The front door. It has been 12 years since my parents lived here and just about everything has been changed.

The Kitchen. The kitchen caught fire once while we lived there from a burnt pop tart in the toaster, so it had to be redone.

The upstairs hallway looking back into my parents bedroom. The stairway going up to the attic is something that wasn't there when we lived there.

The Attic. It looks like they finished it off a little and made it into a bedroom, but it still had exposed insulation.

The Basement. The basement flooded regularly even back when we lived there.

A bulldozer in the vacant lot next door, which used to have a house that has since been torn down.

This is Cheryl's old house that is about 4 blocks away, but in the same neighborhood. She sold it back in 1997 to her ex-husband, who has since sold it to someone else. Apparently the new owners liked it enough to try to save it, they must also like to climb.

To read about the flood, click here

So that's it - the end of another era. You don't forget about the neighborhood and the house where you grew up, but they will soon be gone forever.

2010 Spring School Pictures

2010-04-09T02:21:00.000-07:00

Here are the kiddos recent school pictures from this Spring..
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Here is the lovely Leah - currently in 4th Grade.

Alexander - who is currently navigating 1st Grade.

Benjamin - also in 1st Grade and who recently decided he needed to cut his own bangs. He has also recently had a couple of his teeth pulled.

Here is Miss Jenna, a Preschooler - back when she still had her long and lovely hair.

Here is our other Preschooler Ryan. Since these pictures were taken Ryan and Jenna gave each other haircuts under mysterious circumstances and I'm sure the results will be evident in later posts. We really need to do a better job of hiding all of our scissors.

Jenna and Ryan on Easter - post haircut pictures...

{{SIGH}}

Stairstep Pictures

2010-03-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent stairstep pictures, taken by Cheryl.

Wearing shirts from each of their home countries.

Wearing shirts from China. Jenna's says 'little sister', the boys say 'big brother', and Leah's says 'big sister'. Ryan's is a dragon - he wasn't Jenna's little brother yet when we purchased these shirts back in 2007.

Wearing their 'Holt International' shirts which is the adoption agency we used to adopt each of them. The reason Alex's shirt is so big is it's my shirt.

More shirts from China and the boys are in full clown mode. This one made us laugh!

This is what our old house looks like now. It will be demolished within the next couple of months. To read about why it looks like this click here

Our Father

2010-03-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

3-16-2010 - Our father, Dick Foley, died tonight from complications due to several strokes, possibly caused by lung cancer. He is 69 years-old and was married to our mom, Donna, for 49 years. We have so many good rememberances of life with our father to cherish, but we are sad there will be no more. Our children will miss their grandpa, and I will miss my father who has taught me so much. Dad was a man who like most of us liked to be needed so he was always looking for ways to help others. He was humble and unselfish, but also strong and wise. He was the leader of our family, but now we must carry-on without him - it will be a huge void to fill. Goodbye Dad - I love you.

Our family in the olden days (1978)

My father (Dick) has been in the hospital for the last several days. He was feeling bad and experienced disorientation and a weakness on his right side. This is what we know so far. He has blood clots in his legs and the right side of his lungs. He suffered a mild stroke. There is a mass in his lungs which the doctors think may be cancer. He also has one cracked rib that he doesn't know how or when it happened. They also found a mass in his brain that they think may be damage from the stroke. Dad suffered another stroke almost five years ago that was more severe. Over the last year or so he has been battling leukemia, from which he had been doing pretty well after his treatments.

Leah and I visited dad yesterday at St Luke's hospital. He seemed like his usual self other than that he was tired and doesn't feel well. He's understandably not happy about being in the hospital again. Right now they have him on heperin to break up the blood clots and they are waiting on the results of all the other tests to determine if he has cancer and to what extent if he does. Then I suppose they will discuss treatment options.

So it's not a good situation. Please keep our father Dick in your prayers.

Essay - How One Democrat Becomes A Republican

2010-02-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

I know I said I would keep politics off of this blog and I am (for the most part). However I finally decided to post an essay that I wrote and posted on my political blog "What On Earth". It basically answers the question in the title above. If something like this might be of interest to you click here

As an aside amazingly this blog has made it past 1 year of existence which is somewhat surprising to me. Sometimes I forget about it for long periods of time, and other times I think what's the point? What keeps it going? Is it narcissism on my part? It certainly isn't popularity. Sometimes it's just fun for me to do and other times it's interesting to look back (at least to me). Today I actually looked back to the original post on this blog to remind me why I have kept this up. See it here.

Meeting Porter - Anniversary - Winter Wonderland

2010-02-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

A few days ago we met our new nephew, and our children's new cousin - Porter. Below are a few pictures from this day...

Meeting Porter.

My sister Lori (Porter's mother) with Leah.

Alexander and Leah with their new cousin.

Cheryl holding her new nephew.

On this day it was also our parent's 49th Wedding Anniversary!

Here is Ryan demonstrating his skills and showmanship.

Here is Jenna doing the same.

Here are some Winter Wonderland pictures that Cheryl took. This is our backyard looking southward.

Here is our front yard looking westward.

Our haybarn, the horses and their shelter.

Here is a bizarre nightime photo that I took of Cheryl's old house that was flooded out in June 2008, but now is reborn with a high new foundation. It should be interesting to see how this one turns out.

To view a cool video about American Exceptionalism - click here

China Moon - A Precious Gift From God.

2010-01-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

This is an article that I wrote for the online adoption magazine China Moon about Jenna. I had it on facebook where it was mostly ignored as I expected, but anyway if you want to see it go here

Project - SWITCH

2010-01-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, during our Christmas/New Year's break we had a little project to do. We are moving the boy's bedroom from the blue room (12 X 14) to the green room (12 X 17). The blue room's walls and ceiling are being repainted and the floor recarpeted.

The boy's old blue room (before).

The old green room which was our dining room.

Leah and Jenna painting the blue room brown. This will become our dining room.

The new dining room painted, next is carpeting, and then a new border.

Here is the "crew".

Cheryl cutting the new carpeting - later we glued it down.

This is what the new border looks like.

Jenna comes to give her daddy a hug.

This is our brad nail gun and small air compressor that we use for the oak trim.

Cheryl continuing with the border.

Upside-down Leah.

Leah and Jenna presents...

Room complete - tomorrow comes the hard part - moving in the dining room furniture.

Here is another switch - a 95 GMC Suburban which is replacing our 98 Dodge Durango.

to be continued...

As 2009 Winds Down...

2009-12-29T00:04:00.001-08:00

As 2009 winds down - everyone in our family is in good health - which is a blessing. Our government is in the toilet - which is bad. We are still employed - which is good. However jobs are going to continue to disappear - which is bad. The good news is Jesus saves despite the fact that we are imperfect. Is the end near? I'm certainly no prophet but things are getting mighty crazy. The main event this year was traveling to the Philippines to receive our wonderful new son Ryan, and we managed to complete his adoption this year - which is great! Now we are enjoying our year end vacation - here are some recent pictures that I may add to as the week goes on...

Jenna and Ryan in Korean hanboks.

Thumbs Up!

Alexander & Benjamin - the rock'em sock'em robots.

Still standing.

Leah joins in the "dress up".

Jenna styling with her Dora umbrella wearing one of Leah's old hanboks.

Our beauties.

Flying in a Blue Dream.

She's even pretty in green.

More modeling.

Well I've kept this blog going for almost a year now (11 months) which is surprising to me. There have been times when I thought I would just leave it go, but not yet - it's still kind of fun and interesting to me. Will this blog continue on from here - only time will tell.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-28T10:01:00.001-08:00

It's been a strange Christmas - overall it's been a disappointment for several reasons, enough so that I wasn't going to make a post here but as we all know life isn't always gumdrops and lollipops. The pictures I took were not very good or very many. I guess when you have certain traditions you have certain expectations and when they drastically change it's a disappointment, but inevitable I suppose. Things changed too much this Christmas - that's my view and I think Cheryl would agree.

I should've just took a vacation day on the 23rd, the day before Christmas Eve. Instead I worked this day until 12:30 a.m.. Then I had to do a little shopping at Wal-Mart after work. After this I didn't feel like wrapping presents so I just organized them so they would be ready to wrap the next morning and left them in a locked room. The next morning I found that Leah opened this room and Ben and Alex got into some of their presents, took them off somewhere, opened them up and played with them. They would not admit to this until I got really angry. So I started off this day mad and I still had presents to wrap when I would've just rather cancelled the day.

A picture of the kids on this day. A couple of them were not cooperative on all of them but this one.

Willie, Bruce, and Austin.

Opening presents on Christmas Eve afternoon for the first time (and hopefully the last) ever.

Smiling Ben.

Our parent's giftbasket.

So the 4 pictures above were at the Grandparent Foley's. Lori, Steve, and our new nephew Porter didn't make because of the possibility of bad weather. My mood was poor - I was still in a funk that I couldn't get out of and the ridicule I received as a result didn't make things better. I'm not good at pretending at all. Then the next day the kids opened the rest of the their presents and Cheryl cooked us a turkey dinner. We usually spend Christmas with Cheryl's side of the family but it just didn't happen this year.

Alex and Ben with their dart tag toys.

The rest of the kids on Christmas Morning.

Ryan and Jenna.

Scooter races.

Hopefully the children enjoyed Christmas - it seems like they did. We are spending our Christmas vacation switching the boys bedroom and dining room around - meaning the boys bedroom will be repainted and recarpeted and become the dining room, and the dining room will be repainted and become the boys room so they can have a bigger room.

Ryan is Ours!!! Skating and Christmas Program

2009-12-18T16:35:00.000-08:00

Ryan is Ours!!! Skating and Christmas Program

Today we finalized Ryan's adoption at the Linn County Courthouse, which is currently located at the Westdale Mall in the old Montgomery Wards building. He is now legally our son and a U.S citizen! We represented ourselves for the court hearing (which saves a lot of money) and everything went OK - except for a few of the kids spent the hearing spinning around in chairs and sometimes talking at the same time as the judge. We also forgot to tell the kids that they are supposed to stand up when the judge enters the courtroom, so they didn't and the judge had to raise his hands in the universal "stand up" sign. Our bad, but the judge was a good sport about it all. Oh yeah there was also the time when Leah mentioned to the judge that I sometimes let them sit on my lap and help drive our vehicles (on our access road), but I digress. We got our adoption decrees and ordered Ryan some birth certificates and completed our 5th (and final) adoption. Afterwards we ate breakfast at IHOP's and then we went to the Social Security Office to get Ryan a Social Security Card. Here are some pictures from this occasion...

The children posing before the hearing.

Hanging loose before the court hearing.

Family photo afterwards with the Honorable Russell Keast. Picture taken by the court reporter who was earning some of her $40 fee.

These are some pictures from the night before - Ben, Alex, Leah, and her friend Torie at The Super Skate for a school skating party. This is Ben's first time roller skating and Alex's second. I have went to several of their parties before with Leah.

Leah and Alex.

Here's Leah putting a big bandage on Alex's little finger cut.

Leah doing a cartwheel after the skating was done.

These last 2 photos are from the children's Christmas Program last Sunday at our church (Living Hope Wesleyan). Ben was a Wiseman, Alex was Joseph (Jesus' father), Leah was a Smart Alec, and Jenna & Ryan were sheep.

Christmas is next week. Hopefully there will be another blog post sometime afterward.

White December

2009-12-12T20:29:00.000-08:00

White December

Well throughout November of 2009 here in Iowa we received no snow accumulation, just a couple of dustings really. However come December 8th, 2009 - PLOP! Pretty much over 3 days we received enough snow that school for the kids got cancelled for a couple of days and part of another. Below are the kids playing outside - it was cold with the windchill near 0 degrees F.

Alexander, Leah, and Benjamin.

Ryan by the Playground.

Cheryl, Jenna, Teal'C, and Libby.

Barn View.

Piled High!

I like our chances for a White Christmas, how about you?

Heres a picture of "The Personality Brothers"! They are wearing new jackets that they picked out for themselves.

Now here for a little musical weirdness for your listening pleasure... click on the link below.

"Viking Kittens sing Led Zeppelins "Immigrant Song".

Also Appearing Nightly - Mei Mei & The ROK Patrol!

Jenna

2009-12-06T23:18:00.000-08:00

Jenna

Jenna, our sweet little Chinese princess, is due to have her (at least) 4th surgery on Tuesday, December 8th. She needs another set of ear tubes and this will be her 3rd such operation, which is a simple operation but anytime our child has to be put under anesthesia is a cause for concern. Her speech therapist Sue and her pre-school teacher Natalie are concerned about her speech, as are we. Jenna’s soft palate doesn’t have the necessary range of motion to allow her to easily make certain sounds, and there is often too much air-flow going up through her nose when she speaks (she speaks nasally). Jenna can make just about any sound in the audible range of speech but certain sounds require extra effort, which she usually doesn’t bother to give unless she is coaxed to do so. She can speak (enunciate) better if she wears a nose plug, which shows that the air-flow out of her nose while speaking is a big part of the problem. Last week I took Jenna to a bi-annual checkup at the University of Iowa Otolaryngology department to have her checked out by her main doctor, Dr. Canady, and other specialists including a hearing and speech therapist. Jenna was in her shut-down mode during this time, which she does sometimes when she is frightened. As a result she didn’t do as well in her testing as she usually does during her usual speech therapy – no matter though because it showed them she continues to need help. The first step from now is the new ear tubes. Jenna currently has a tube in her right ear; the left one was pulled out by Dr. Metzger because it was falling out and useless. It wasn’t too much later that this ear became infected and she had to start taking antibiotics again. Jenna has suffered several ear infections in her young life.

Of course continued speech therapy is required and then she will need more surgeries on her palate in the future. We are trying to stay on top of things and get her the help she needs for her to speak as well as possible. Jenna is 5-years-old and we are not very clear on where she is at (how much behind) as far as mental development. Basically we don’t know the degree of which are due to her hearing and speech difficulties, but she is at that point where things are really going to start taking off as far as the learning curve and we don’t want her to get left behind if possible. Jenna is already behind because we held her back from kindergarten. The speech therapist at U of I told me that he thinks Jenna is going to have a long, hard road. Another factor is Jenna lived the first 3+ years of her life in an orphanage in China with very little interaction and stimulation for learning so she missed out on a very crucial period for these developmental milestones. Jenna is very bright, loving, energetic, spunky, yet very sweet and demure. She is a naturally happy child, who when she does get down or angry doesn’t stay that way for long. Jenna has come such a long way in the 2 ½ years since she joined our family and we have great faith and hope for her future.

More about Jenna - click here

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-12-05T15:54:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the previous post we didn't actually celebrate Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving, but everyone recovered by Saturday so we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Grandparent Foley's house.

Alexander balancing on the rock.

Mealtime.

Jenna with her Uncle Bruce.

The after lunchtime walk around the neighborhood.

Cheryl and Leah.

Leah and Jenna with Grandparent's Dick and Donna.

Samantha and Julie.

Zoey, Kobe, Cathy, and Mike.

Our family.

Bruce and Willie.

Lego Building competition.

Alex & Ben before their Christmas program.

Fall 2009 School Pictures

2009-11-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

Here are the Fall 2009 School Pictures of our children...

Here is Leah (Age 9 - Fourth Grade).

Here is Alexander (Age 7 - First Grade).

Here is Benjamin (Age 6 - First Grade).

Here is Jenna (Age 5 - Preschool). This is her first school picture ever.

Here is Ryan (Age 4 - Preschool). This is also Ryan's first school picture.

Speaking of Ryan - we received a nice surprise recently. Consents to adopt paperwork from both ICAB (The Philippines) and Holt-Oregon, which we needed to finalize his adoption. Cheryl did all of the necessary adoption finalization paperwork, and I filed all of it at our county courthouse (which because of the 2008 floods is located at Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids). We have a courtdate for December 18th, 2009.

Today is Thanksgiving. We were supposed to host a meal here at our home but it was cancelled because the main cook (Cheryl) was ill. Recently Ryan, Jenna, and Alex have also been ill with some kind of stomach virus, but they are OK now. Hopefully they will be OK by Saturday when we go to the Grandparent Foley's for a Thanksgiving meal.