1 YEAR WITH BIRUK

May 2nd marked our 1 year anniversary of Biruk being home. We met him on April 26, 2010 in Ethiopia and arrived home on May 2, 2010.

So much has happened in that 1 year!
I want to do a whole post on our first year with Biruk ~so will just leave this one as a picture post. :)

When given the choice of where to celebrate ANY occassion ~Biruk now chooses our local Ethiopian restaurant. :)
They know us quite well by now!

they even sit us at the same table every time we go. :)

and we order the SAME thing every time ~the "exclusive platter" (a bit of everything!) plus an extra helping of doro wat ~Biruk's favorite dish. :)

Happy 1 Year Home Biruki!

KARATE VIDEO

In April I rented a karate instructional video. The kids had been talking about wanting to take karate...and we just don't have the funds to put them in karate class AND their other sports programs, so I rented the video. :)

They were so attentive and so fun to watch!

Hi-YA!

SPRING FOOTBALL

Once again, Andrew played football this past Spring season.

We LOVE watching him play.

He's not the fastest.

He's not the most athletic on the team.

but...

He gives 110% of himself every practice and every game.

He loves this game.

He really "gets" it.

and it's just fun to watch him.

OUR GIRLS

just cuz I love them

ANIMAL RESCUE/PETTING ZOO

In late April, I took the kids (minus Becca...the consequence of some bad decisions was to miss out on this field trip) to a local "farm". It's actually an animal rescue -they have hundreds of rescued animals...dogs, goats, pig, camel, llamas, horses...I swear, you name it, they've rescued it.

Some of the animals are on display (for lack of a better term) for you to visit, feed, pet. They even offer pony rides ~not just a wimpy walk-around-in-a-circle ride....they saddle up a pony and take you on a tour around the farm! It was too hot to do a pony ride the day we visited...but I promised the kids we'd come back in the Fall.

this is James the camel.

he was at our local zoo and supposed to be the camel you could ride -but he was lazy and lost his job. :)

he was super friendly and just wanted you to feed him!

miniature horses

a zonkey ~1/2 zebra 1/2 donkey

if you look behind the mama, you can see the baby -I think it was only 2 weeks old.

big fat pig!