Saturday, June 19, 2010

mei finally gives in

for a long time she would always tell David NO WAY to ear piercing but when we were in Destin she turned to him just randomly and said "ok I do my ears now".
for a split second she wasn't to sure about it
but after it was over she said it wasn't to bad . she said in China she only ever saw 1 person with earrings so she was very proud of herself and knew that her dad was very proud too.

she was very excited to show "her best friend" Rachel who was leaving the country the next day. so we stopped over for roasting marshmallows to say goodbye.

and track season comes to a close

David coached 1 girl this year and as you can see by their smiles she finished the season great. She is a senior this year that's the hard part of this coaching thing your students leave after 4 years. She was one of our favorites. if your keeping track the good coach has been down state every year of his career so far. Lets keep that tradition goin!

Friday, June 18, 2010

my celebration put in to words

no picture today. You will have to use your imagination this time. If I could show you her picture 2, 4, 6 year ago it would be a thin black haired girl a smile with no teeth showing probably holding up two fingers because that's what everyone does but she is a girl society forgot. her orphan papers didn't even begin to be written until she was at the institution for 5 years, much to late to be wanted by 99% of people looking for babies. No body saw her except one her heavenly father who like He did for His own son was making a plan for her life but one that would take a while longer to be realized. A bit dramatic? no it is the truth. you know our story God led us to her, we were part of the plan. She has received such wonderful freedoms here, love, confidence and assurance of her place here. As she was flying a kite on the beach making believe it would pull her up in the air I asked her "what if the kite flew you all the way to China?" she said in quick response "that's easy you and baba would come pick me up again" the security a family brings is something we so carelessly forget about. Up stairs she has a great grandma now who has prayed for her since way before she knew she was there. In our family we always say that if grandmas praying for it sit back and wait for it to happen she as quite a godly woman. Well today it happened as we sat back a watched it happen as that girl who now has a new life with her family made a phone call to her "grandma upstairs" "I asked Jesus in my heart" and with the pure love and joy on the other line her new grandma with tears in her voice said "oh how I have prayed you would" mei had even heard it for herself. grandma can't get on her knees anymore but when the kids go up for breakfast they know they have to wait until grandmas done praying for everyone by name. she had heard her name being prayed for over and over that she would understand the the message of the Bible.
so on this day June 17th the day after we mourned the death of our cousin who died a long two years ago and celebrated that God sent a new life on that same day to make our family count up to 46 making it a day of life, we can all celebrate yet again as a little girl who once had a very slim chance of ever even hearing of the love of Jesus sat in the back seat of the car with her sister and heard again about His love for her. How many times has liv shared with her? how many times did the language make it confusing? Not t0day God used his little missionary right there right then to help give her sister the understanding of god who dearly loves her. A book I am reading said," doing something bigger than yourself doesn't depend on how old you are it depends on how available you are. If you choose to be available God will work through you." I am thankful for my 7 year old who was not willing to leave the job to a grown up it was her job. While the rest of us listened to The Hobbit liv was in the back seat leading her sister step by step in to Gods family. Our family yes, an American citizen sure but best of all she is God child who has been given eternal life in heaven. so we will celebrate back to back life giving days here in the middle of June where that skinny toothless smile no longer exists and new creation has taken her place .

Thursday, June 17, 2010

we give Destin 2 big thumbs up!

no I do not pose him for these photos he is just that crazy. maybe I should use it as his portrait it just shouts his character
we went to visit two of our favorite people at our favorite beaches. Chris warmly welcomed us with boiled craw fish. These two loved them
bonus 3 more of our friends came to stay at Miss J's too
this is a very common site, B throwing G in or the other way around, over and over
we decided to come to Destin during an actual beach month since we usually are there when we are the only fools in the water.
Rho played puppies with the kids where they would do tricks and she would throw them "doggy treats" aka gummy bears. Mei, smart girl she is, would not be involved in the doggy play and ended up being the dog trainer telling the "puppies" what trick she wanted to see next. As you can imagine this is not a custom the Rill house hold will be picking up as generally we are NOT dog lovers, sorry Rho.
as you look at this beautiful white beach it is a reminder that God makes such wonderful gifts for us and man is so good a making things very ugly... thankfully we never saw the oil hit the beach

the boys spent a lot of time on the courts. God bless them because it was HOT in the 90s with the Florida humidity. my boys put the tennis lessons Phil gave them to great use, he would have been very proud of them.
when in Destin Pamapano joes is a must for us. Chris says he never eats here unless company is here. We told him it's the same for us and Giordano's at home. For the pic below- I bet this was another first. we ordered pizza to the pool and got noodles for Mei the delivery had no plates, napkins or utensils included so the best we could come up with was a sand toy, washed up and good luck. she thought it was hilarious and well it was.
the waves were really good for boogie boarding the kids rodes waves hundreds of times I am sure
this was after a hot day at the beach and boy did that ice cream taste like a piece of heaven on a spoon
I took this picture from about say 18 ft away so he wasn't even looking at me really. funny how in this "quiet" picture you can still see the mischief in his eyes
now you may be sick of seeing these traditional pictures of our but look again if you notice our #5 is jumping in 5ft water with no life jacket on, not bad progress from a girl who had never even seen a pool 10 months ago
fun on inter coastal water.
Gator boys
one last dinner together. If the sun was still up you would see the gulf out that window.
this was the night of the black hawks final game so the boys took turns running to a tv to keep up on the score and planned the ride home properly
and here is where we were when chicago made history it was kind of sweet they weren't at home either
Rho and the kids left fri am. This is our last night there we went to a concert in the park with miss J and grandma while the big boys and chris watched the basketball game. It was right up our alley a band, playing oldies so we knew everyone, food friends and the kids even got out dancing with miss janet. when we got there Mei said "" I always wanted to see one of these" meaning a band I guess shawn dave and frank are a real band in her mind it's just her dad and his friends. anyway I was happy to be able to check that off her things to see list
miss J has beautiful property with wonderful gardens and she loves to take care of them. so we took the kids to pick out thank you plants and they spent the morning before we left planting and doing yard work it was the perfect ending. they all adore her so much that even pulling weeds with her is great

we love miss janet so much she has become a part of our family and the more time we spend with her the more and more she reminds me of my mom. During this trip I had the thought, maybe God brought the Rapps in to our lives so my babies could have someone like my mom the grandma they lost way to soon, to love, play, get dirty with and hug just like they surely would have if she was still here with us. thanks God I needed this
when I said "ok now chris' turn they ran over jumping on him and hugging him after about 7 pictures I finally got one where you can see their faces. Thank you guys for opening your home and lives to us you know how much we love you guys and we had a great time as always!

Friday, June 4, 2010

now this I can do

we had our first baby sitting for babyA
we still have plenty of things to keep babies happy
B having his time with A
she even ate my favorite sweet potatoes, yum
she knows her routine
the boys turn to play
different day but still having fun with baby A even if it is just at target!