As far as I'm concerned, the Eimer's have pulled off a feat as miraculous as walking on water. That is, they were able to photograph all of their kids, all at once, looking in the same direction, and all smiling (
see their blog). I can't tell ya how many photos I have of all three kids together, the pictures are endless. But in each snapshot, someone is unhappy, smirking, giving an evil look, rabbit eared, crying, hitting, looking away, blurred, you name it. The few that I do have are all posted here, in a facade of family photographic cooperation! Taking a photo of just one kid is a breeze, get all three together and it's mayhem!
No one else has this problem at all, right?! To get one great family picture, many billions of bytes of data die a gruesome electronic death. If I had a nickel for every time that shutter clicked! Thank goodness we have a digital camera!
This is the last week left of school for the kids and they are getting antsy. They are ready to be done for the school year. We have a few local day camps set up for them throughout the summer, just a couple of days a week. We are going to hire a teen in the area to take them to the pool once or twice a week, too. Our three used to go to Spain during the summers, except for last year when they stayed in Ukraine and went to the Black Sea to a stay-away camp. Rimma & Zina will be doing this again because their director, yet again, wouldn't allow the girls to come home for the summer.
I have heard the stories about unsupervised orphan kids running about the summer camps in Ukraine from adults we know, but our kids have been sharing stories as of late about their trips to the Black Sea. It's pretty much the same story. Nadia told me a story about 20 kids eating one watermelon as their only meal that day at the sea, too. Christian camp influences like
Karen Springs' group and AGAPE are a welcome change for these youths, and quite a few become new first-time Christians as a result.
We will have to stay in and around Colorado this year unless something magical happens. This is Heidi's busiest time of year and I only have two weeks of vacation saved up. I will need all I can get should we go get Rimma this Fall, unless I go FMLA. We have been taking short day trips to the mountains whenever possible and there will be lots of opportunity to camp and fish during summer up there. In fact Kole and I are going camping and fishing at the hottest rainbow trout spot in Colorado this weekend. We are leaving on Friday and will be fishing all day Saturday before returning home that night. Sunday will be a day of rest before my big Bolder Boulder 10K race on Monday, Memorial Day. I train for it every year, each time trying to better my time over the previous year. My practice run this past weekend puts me in the 55-57 minute time frame!
At our old house, we had a very nice garden. I would get a basket of tomatoes a day out of it. We've been missing that garden as of late, especially when the kids eat tons of veggies and seem to not get enough of them. So, we dug up rock and nailed garden boxes to create the new Rogé family garden. I've had a garden in some way or fashion since I was a kid in Louisiana. It's a southern thing, although we don't have the market cornered or anything. If you didn't have a garden in the South, you were bonafide city folk. We were organic for decades before everyone else found out that it was cool or whatever. We used home remedies to keep the bugs and critters off the plants and our secret fertilizer ingredient was cow manure. My sweet granny, Viola, would be shocked to hear that I buy it in a bag now, we used to go out into our cow pasture with the wheel barrow. Nowadays, Colorado doesn't have the bugs and the only critter I have to do battle with is Buddy our chow-hound.
We talked with both Zina and Rimma this weekend, on two separate occasions. Zina called while we were in the store getting supplies for the garden. Nadia had stayed home, so only Julia and Kolya were available to translate. She wanted us to call back later when Nadia could talk. By the time we got home, had lunch, and got back on the phone to her, she had gone to bed. Rimma answered the phone and chatted awhile. She did finally get our package a few days after Zina's arrived and she said that she loved the shoes. Earlier we sent some cash to her caretaker for both of them to get swimsuits in Ukraine. Rimma explained that they still didn't have enough for the suits, so they just bought sunglasses and summer stuff for the camp with the money. When I asked her if she was just going to wear her underwear to swim in, she giggled. It was great to hear them both again from the other side of the world.
~Felix~
Here's Nadia at the Newcomer's graduation with her teacher, Mr, DJ. Her enrollment in this class was the best thing for her, she really blossomed! Julia will be attending this program next year.
