2 Years Later...

Two years ago, Nate and I sat in a hotel in Strongsville, glued to the computer as we watched our son's plane "travel" across the computer screen on his way to Chicago from Seoul. I got very little sleep that night, and I guess very little sleep since but that's okay! The following morning, Nate and I would take a trip that was roughly three years in the making. A trip to wrap our arms around our youngest son, who had been born in our hearts so long before! The joy and excitement of that day truly ranks up there with the birth of both our other two children! While there was no physical pain, the time waiting for the plane to unload, for him to go through customs, and for him to finally come through the glass door, which we had been staring at him through for what seemed like hours but was likely only several minutes was painful in different ways! But the relief of holding him in my arms, healthy, warm and forever ours was no different than holding our squirmy babies in the years before!

I was going to post some photos, but as I was looking through some disks, I came across the video that we were sent while he was still in Korea, in the care of his loving Foster Mother. While I created several videos like this one while we waited and this one of his homecoming I had kinda forgotten about this jewel of a video. I wish I could upload it, but it came as a DVD and I don't know how to get it into a raw file to upload... if anyone knows how to do that, let me know!

Anyway, as I sat and watched this video, I was moved to tears. This little guy, who at the time we first watched we knew very little about, is so much like the crazy 4 year old that has been home with us for 2 years now. His facial expressions, his giggle, his little voice when he tried to communicate. It is all identical. And the personality that he showed in the video is him to a T! I'm sure that's how it should be, but it is just something to watch the video again, now knowing him as my son, knowing him as well as I do, and see that same little spunky spirit!

We are hoping to celebrate our Forever Family day tomorrow in some way. We still don't know exactly what we will do. We had hoped to go to an Akron Aeros game like we did last year, but as was the case last year, they are calling for LOTS of rain and we don't want to chance it. We've talked about bowling so that may be what we'll do. No matter what we do or where we go, as long as we are together, as our Forever Family, that is all I could ask for.

So I'll close with these thoughts, while it has been two years since Toby has come home, we are still not at the magical date. That is the date in which he has been a part of our family longer than he wasn't. We still have a few more months until that date. They say that at that point, you can get a true measure of how well your adopted child is "bonding", and settling in to their new lives. Well, I know we aren't at that date yet, but I can say I am not worried. Toby is doing TREMENDOUS!!!! I could not ask for him to be doing better... well maybe if we were completely over the nightmares and I could get more sleep, but other than that, he is doing amazing. He is speaking in complete 5-7 word sentences. He is counting to 5 which is a huge accomplishment. He knows his shapes and colors and is showing more interest in writing and learning letters and numbers.

He makes amazing eye contact with us, tells us often how he loves us all, and loves to be held and cuddled.. all the time :) He loves spending time with our extended families and all our friends.

No new videos this year, but I thought I would link back to these other videos of his Finalization Day and the video I created last year containing his Year of Firsts.

And as I close each post, with the meaning of Toby's name... God is Good!!!

While Daddy's Away, the Kids Must Play

With Nate gone for a week, I've tried to keep the kids busy! We planned a few trips out to help them pass the time! On Sunday, after church, we hit the road for the Cleveland Zoo. It was a beautiful day and the zoo wasn't too crowded. We hope to go back again a few times this summer!

Here is Drew showing off his Mo Move!

Taylor playing Mommy (and loving it)

And the one photo we get every time we head to the Zoo!

Then on Wednesday, in the middle of the week, we took off for Columbus to COSI (which was insanely crowded by the way)! Another place we love and visit as often as we can! My friend Jess went along as well and we had a wonderful time!

For those of you that have spent any time with Toby, you'll understand how cool this was for him! "The Witch"

Taylor and Drew playing in the water!

This photo is a little blurry, butToby was thrilled with his ability to pull himself up on these pulleys! He was just squealing and as his face shows, he was ecstatic!

Now we wait, for daddy to come home safely tomorrow night!

God is Good!

Pray for Nate

Please be praying for Nate's upcoming Mission Trip to San Francisco, where they will be serving with YWAM. You can check out his prayer requests on his Blog. It is going to be a wonderful week for him, and I have been praying that God will protect him while he is there, that God will use him and the others to touch the least of these in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco and that God will stretch Nate in his Faith, and continue to lead and guide him as he seeks God's Will for Ministry in his life.

If you'd like to see a nice video from YWAM about what it is that they do in San Fran, click here for a link to a YouTube video.

If you'd like to follow the updates on the trip from Student Ministries, you can check out their blog by clicking here.

God is Good

Independence Day

Another fun filled holiday! This post will be short and sweet...

A few photos from the parade!

Taylor was with her cousin Derek on a float for Bob Miller Realty and Grandma and Grandpa Moser
Nate and the boys on the float for Hummel Group that the rest of us road on.


A view from the float of the Youngs, Snyders and Kings (you'd have thought those kids have never had candy before!)

Here's Toby, with Willy, at Grandma Debbie's for a family picnic.

After a stop at the Moser's we went to our friends The Cleveland's for a cookout and fireworks. Here is Toby with his buddy Aidan playing with chalk. Aidan seems very interested in what Toby is saying!
And another shot of the boys, this time the tables are turned, and Toby is hanging on every word of Aidans. And I love the hands!


I learned that RAD is a pyro! He really enjoyed keeping the fire going!

We also had Sparklers. Toby wasn't all that into them, but he enjoyed watching me!


Another wonderful weekend of memories!

God is Good!

Final Days of Vacation

Our last few days of vacation were spent lounging! After our busy day in Nashville, we hung out at the trailer for most of Thursday. Nate did take the older 2 swimming while I stayed back with Toby so he could get a nap. But Thursday evening, when it cooled to a lovely 90 degrees, was one of the highlights for the kids when they got to do this...

And make These...


As you can see it was a huge success for this guy...


And This Guy...


I think they all had a good time just enjoying their Smores and "playing" in the fire! (While heavily supervised, I promise)


This is one of Drew's Favorite things... It's a boy thing, I'm sure of it!

We didn't hang out by the fire long, but the kids got to experience making their smores on vacation.

Then on Friday afternoon, again when it was too hot to do much else, we jumped in the car and headed over to Ft. Donelson, TN. It is a self guided tour to about 11 or so different sites from the Civil War Battleground. Lots of history. We saw a very nice video with details of the 3 day battle and then went on our way to visit some of the sights.

Here is the Confederate monument at Ft. Donelson.
Here the kids are inside one of the reconstructed sleeping quarters for the soldiers. The soldiers and slaves built over 400 of these for their sleeping quarters. After the surrender, the Federals burned them all down due to a measles outbreak.



This is a beautiful shot of the Confederates lower river batteries. From this site, the Confederates were able to defeat the Federals as they cruised up in their ironclad boats.
This was one of the most touching parts for me personally. Going to the National Cemetery and seeing tombstones like this one. 670 Union soldiers are buried here, and of them, 512 are unknown. The pictures in my head of the battles, and what remained are just heartbreaking, then to see that there were 512 unknown soldiers buried here, just confirmed what war looked like in the days of the Civil War.

And this place, the Dover Hotel is where the surrender took place. We were able to go inside and they showed a short video of what discussions prior to surrender may have sounded like with General Buckner and his staff, as well as what the discussion may have been upon the surrender to General Grant. An estimated 13,000 Confederate soldiers passed by here as they loaded the boats on the river to head North to the Prisoners of War camps in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Boston. It was said that they suffered greatly because they were ill prepared for the weather (I can relate here in Ohio, we are never prepared!)
Drew did not want to go with us on this outing. But after, when we asked him his favorite part of vacation, he stated it was the Civil War place. He bought a few packages of the little plastic war guys and has been playing with them a lot. I think it had a pretty big impact on him!

After our tour of Ft Donelson, and a stop at SONIC for Limeades to cool off from the 100+ temps, we headed back to start our cleaning up and packing for the trip home!

So Saturday morning, bright and early... well maybe early, it wasn't bright yet at 4AM, we loaded up and headed out! We hit the Ohio border around 11 due to a stop for breakfast, we stopped again for some lunch around 2 and were back home by 3 or so. (there is a one hour time difference, too!)

It was a very nice trip. We made lots of memories and had a wonderful, relaxing time!

God is Good!

Nashville Zoo

After our wonderful lunch in Franklin with Zach and Sarah and tour of Total Axxess Studio and visit with Wally and Donna and others there, we headed back for Nashville and a visit to the Nashville Zoo. We didn't know what to expect but knew we would have a wonderful time hanging out! It was hot, so we were afraid we may not be able to stay long, but then as we walked through the gates, we knew we would be fine! What a beautiful, wonderfully shaded zoo!

Here is a view of what we saw when we first walked in! We knew if it was all this beautiful and shaded, we'd be fine, and we were!

The one animal Toby wanted to see was the "montey". They were right inside, so that made it easy! He got a good show as a few of them were swinging around from branch to branch!

We were on our way to get the lay of the land. Unfortunately, we lost our maps about halfway through and missed seeing a few things like the elephants and giraffes, but I think we saw most everything else.

Taylor had a close encounter with a snake. She was the only one of the kids brave enough to get up close!


What a life!

ANACONDA!!! This thing was measured at 17 feet... 3 YEARS AGO! They said it is likely 19-20 feet now. And to think, after the dinosaur encounter, Toby wasn't scared of this thing. But it WAS behind the glass!


This had to be the creepiest looking thing there. The giant ant eater. Just down right Weird. One of those... what was God thinking moments! I'm sure there was a purpose for this thing to look like it does!


A cute photo of Nate and his "baby" Toby. He's sucking on one of those ring pops, but it looks like a binky! And he's sporting his new Zoo hat!!


I just can't get enough of when the two of them are off on their own, getting along so well. Other than the car ride home, it was a day full of sites like this!

I couldn't believe I got this photo! Katy would be proud! Have no idea exactly what it is, but hey, neat photo non-the-less!

The one entire section of the zoo was bamboo! It was amazing! I just kept touching it and marveling at all the bamboo! It was beautiful!

Drew had a good time playing on the jungle gym!

And here's Taylor exiting the mouth of the snake!


Nate had to have a fun photo as well! Like he would ever get this close to an alligator!

After our time at the Zoo, we headed into Nashville to go shopping for Katy, or try to at least. Here we were outside of Cotton Eyed Joes and Nashville Limited. Nate had to get a photo with his pal Elvis! It was a beautiful night to be walking around, but it started to get late, and dark, and you all know what happens then. The kids got a quick lesson on how to handle certain people when out in a big city.

We got to stop at Sonic on the way. Our first time, and it wasn't the best. The order was wrong, the food was cold, but the Limeade was AMAZING!! Worth the stop for sure. We may have to make another stop there tomorrow, and again Saturday on the way home!!!

All in all a WONDERFUL day!

God is Good

Adventure Science Center

Well our trip to Nashville was a BLAST!! It took us 2 hours to get there, and it was worth every minute of the trip! Our first stop was Adventure Science Center. We had planned about 3 hours and that was plenty of time. I'm sure the kids could have played all day, but I think they enjoyed every minute we were there!

This was the room we first walked into. It just had a lot of hands on "science experiments" that were kid friendly. Here, Drew is learning about trajectory. The blue ball is in the air, headed toward the catching net!
In the same area, the kids got to mess around with sound a little bit on this piano. Of course Taylor was all about playing on the piano!


The kids worked hard to pick up this nice red Fierro. Nate and I both laughed when we saw it and thought of Papaw Rudy. The kids didn't understand our reference, but any of our family will!

I thought this was just an amazing shot! As you can see, Drew is jumping off the slide on to what else, but a whoopee cushion! I'll leave it to your imagination what happened when he jumped on it, but let's just say he enjoyed it over and over again! There was an entire section on the body and the kids particularly liked all the stuff on digestion!

There was an entire section on space and astronauts. I'm not exactly sure what Drew was doing in this photo, but I thought it was hilarious that Toby was mimicking him!

This is a rather long video, but it is Taylor "Space Walking". She enjoyed it, but said her bottom hurt for a little while afterwards. i can't imagine why :)

This was the only dinosaur exhibit. One little section with a few automated dinosaurs! Let's just say...

Toby wasn't thrilled about them!

Here Nate and Taylor were trying to move a ball with their brain waves. Not exactly sure how it worked, but Nate's kept showing flat line... not sure what that meant :)

They had a big climbing/jungle gym thing that the kids really enjoyed! Toby worked hard to get across this rope bridge!


Here Toby was doing some sorting! He did such a great job sorting and naming the shapes. Something we've been working very hard on this last year!

Here are the kids in front of a brain. It was interactive as well!


Here is one last video we took as we were heading out. It was a green screen and you could pick your background! They had a lot of fun with this!

After our time at the Science Center, we hopped in the car and headed to Franklin to have lunch with a friend who used to work at our church. Zach and his wife introduced us to McDouglas Chicken! YUM!!! After lunch, Zach was kind enough to take us on a quick tour of the radio station he works at, where he works with Wally on Total Axxess. This radio show is broadcast back in Wooster on WVMC FM at 7PM each night! You should check it out if you haven't already! We had a quick encounter with Wally, who had to remark on Drew's TobyMac shirt and if you've ever heard Wally, you'll understand his fascination with Toby! It was a really fun little tour, one the kids won't soon forget, especially each night as we listen in to the radio show! Pretty cool little side trip!

God is Good!