Monday, July 20

We started the day with a surprize: We were going to have company a day earlier than planned. Johnny's sister, mom, & nephew were coming two spend 2 weeks with us, but because Ben's team didn't do very well at the tournament they would be coming sooner. Which is good because I thought their trip out here was already too short for all their is to see. The more we see, the more we have to share. So, while we are cleaning camping gear, we are also doing laundry and cleaning our rooms and the bathroom that Juliet & Jaymark use will also be the guest bathroom. So Jmk helped clean the toilet & floor and Jlt did the sink & bathtub (what a ring it had around it from our busy, dusty, outside summer life ! Then we folded laundry and the kids went off to play on the stairs. However, J & J's voices get louder & louder. He has been throwing a ball down the stairs (no problem with that, and they are laughing, but it seems she said something to make Jmk mad. He went running to his bed and hid in it. Upside down. He won't talk to me. No one will talk to me. Juliet goes down to the living room and plays by herself. I ask her what is making him mad. She won't talk. I say, " I am sure you said or did something to make Jmk mad and that makes me sad, because I had told him it was ok to throw that ball down the stairs. So I don't know if you took it from him, or said something that made him mad, but you don't need to make your brother mad." After about half an hour, I go get Jmk and bring him downstairs. It is easier to clean with them out of the way, but I don't wan them to be mad all day, we have somewhere to go today. I went to tell Jmk that I was sure that Juliet mad him mad, but that he didn't have to hide from me. I carried him downstairs even though he didn't like it at all, I wasn't worried that he tried to bite me and kick me. I put him on the couch and gave him some legoes, and he started building. He was fine in a few minutes, and I was able to continue dusting and getting lunch ready. The day went on as if nothing happened. I didn't find out what Jlt did to make him mad, but later on in the evening, she told me she teased him and that made him mad. he had gotten tired of it. This would happen quite a few more times before they went home. Later on in the month, they were better at telling me what happened earlier in the day when there had been a problem. During evening prayers, if they had to, they would apologize. They would have a lot of laughs, and loved joking & teasing with each other until all of a sudden...one would get mad. As much as possible, we tried to have one of us sit in the back seat of the Honda with them because most of the teasing was done in the car.

We got as much as we could done this morning, and after lunch, off we went to Parties R Us to go jump on the jumpy things. We had plenty of adult supervision, so I could sneak off to get my allergy shot for 20 minutes and upon returning, we found that most of the kids were playing other games and eating popcorn and not as much interested in the jumpy things. Then they would chase each other and tease and hide and play basketball, and run back to the "ding-ding-ding" games and go back to the jumpy slides, but to me it seemed they were having lots of fun. That Popcorn sure was a hit ! AS they got tired, they were snippy with each other, and adults had more work to do to keep them satisfied.

We grabbed a few things at Walmart on the way home, mostly fruit, and I put Jmk in the cart. Jlt pushed it. As I told them what was on my list, she found it on the shelf, and Jmk meticulously stacked it in the cart. Really cool. He was always so particular. She was just the opposite while with us. I wished then we had $ 40,000 in the bank so we could adopt them it would be nice to have this help all the time. When we got home and put away the groceries, I was trying to decide if we had time to go for a quick swim when at 5:00, in walks Johnny's family. We visited, but the sad thing was, it would be Juliet's last chance to swim, only we wouldn't know that for 2 days. When Jny came home, he helps them with biking as Juliet has got it, but Jaymark still needs help with balance & brakes. He never gives up. Tonight, Johnny came home with training wheels, and so Jaymark goes too fast for his new freedom, falls and gets a bad scrape on his knee. I never liked the idea of training wheels, because at his age & size, I thought it would be better to learn to balance. His other problem is that he doesn't use the brakes, or he presses on them when he is going forward, and it makes him come to a halt too fast, or he can't get going. He will get it though !

Since Jny's nephew plays soccor, we thought that would be popular with Jmk, but it wasn't as much as I thought it would be. They did play some, but there was a new distraction: A little white dog called " Lotus" that would add lots of action to the house. Jmk would chase him and often be found in the guest room with Lotus. Then Lotus would terrorize our cat and eat her food, so we had to put that up high, but finally the cat got some of it's own treatment as she terrorizes our Mazie dog. It was a zoo, but so funny to watch. Jmk would run around calling "Lor-des" and it took us over a week to realize he was calling the little white dog. We thought he was using a tagalogue word for dog or something like that ! I guess it was just his cute accent ! Jmk just really enjoyed the smaller new dog and after that, he forgot to help feed Mazie as he had done every day, unless I reminded him, and he'd go, "oh, yeh !" After a few days, I didn't remind him any more. He had to be with "Lordes" every moment ! What a laugh !

Sunday, July 19

Summer of HOPE w/ Juliet & Jaymark:

First, the KEY:

Jlt = Juliet

Jmk = Jaymark

JJ is both of them

Jny = Johnny

and

I'm deb

The kids really liked all four of us sleeping together in the tent. We only have 4 sleeping bags, but we had to give one to Chris, so we put old sleeping pads down, and a heavy blanket and the extra sleeping bag on top of them, but it seems through the night they took turns rolling the blanket around themselves, so when we awoke, we found Jmk shivering in a corner of the bag. After he went to the bathroom, which is what probably woke him up, we got him tucked in better. What I remember most about the evening, though, was the quiet beautiful prayers after the wild evening. There had been someone at the campground who had her 18th birthday party, so there was a live band for all of us to hear (whether we wanted to or not) which was actually pretty good, so many of the kids, including ours ran off to the dance while adults had the privilege of sitting around a campfire and visiting. As good as that was, the quiet moments we had with them as they prayed in the tent were even better. Jlt prays in English and Jmk in Tagalogue, such sweet voices they have ! How loving their words. They zonked out fast after that. A very full day. No tears from Jmk, as he was very happy to sleep with all of us together. We slept until about 9 a.m. this morning. I enjoyed sharing breakfast and lunch with everyone. There was no bickering in the car going home today. They were too tired and slept almost the whole way home. We saw Bald Eagles, and Canada geese and many kinds of bird life, but since they just slept through it all, Johnny and I actually stopped a few times and visited with each other. Since we came separately, we drove home in 2 cars, but to keep each other awake, we yacked on the cell phone along the way. What was really cool though, was how hard the kids slept, yet when we pulled into the driveway, they woke up, went up stairs, cleaned their teeth and went straight to bed. Here is video of Johnny going for a ride with Jaymark in his canoe in the morning.

Saturday, July 18

Summer of HOPE w/ Juliet & Jaymark:

First, the KEY:

Jlt = Juliet

Jmk = Jaymark

JJ is both of them

Jny = Johnny

and

I'm deb

Johnny is making a canoe carrier so we can take 3 canoes up to Canyon Ferry this weekend, though it has been a slow process. I got going about 1 pm by the time we were packed, and Jny came back from taking Chris over to the Blockey's to get clothes for the weekend. Chris used the morning to catch up & respond to his e-mails, so we are finding out that Jaymark is actually 8 instead of 9 years of age, as there has been a mix-up in the paperwork somehow.

Jny is to follow us up to Canyon Ferry where we will camp with the Blockey's on the edge of the lake in our huge tent. He is supposed to be a few hours behind us. Saturday we arrived about 4/4:30, but not until we drove to dam near Kim's Marina, then drove back to the sign we had seen at milepost #5, only to see the sign said, in very small red letters at the bottom, "2 miles past the damn" so we went back AGAIN ! Also, the first time we arrived at the sign, I remembered only to turn at the second flashing light. I couldn't remember the name of the marina we were going where we would meet up with other families that were joining us for the weekend, families that were hosting, or had in the past, and families that were looking to meet the children we were hosting that might want to consider adopting them. I needed to call Johnny to get better directions, but we were out of cell range, so we kept going up a hill until we got where we could catch a cell. We called Johnny for better directions and he couldn't remember any more than I did, and that it was called "Kim Marina" and we found out he was leaving pretty soon, which he didn't, really, but anyway, if we couldn't find it, he still might beat us !

Then we turned around to go back down to read the sign the said "Kim's Marina", or to turn to the marina by the sign. But there was no lake around, the road too small and the roads looked more like someone's driveway so we went back on the road and as far as the damn. That didn't look right, and it looked like the end of the lake, so Chris and I agreed to go back to the sign, it had to be one of those roads. So we went back to the sign and went farther down those roads, but they did end up being posted as private lands. So we went back to the sign, and this third time we saw the red letters at the bottom of the sign, finally knew to go past the damn 2 miles. This is when I finally found the directions in my box in the Honda, where I keep suntan lotion & stuff. I had put it in a few days before and it slid down to where I couldn't see it, and then I forgot I had planned ahead ! Oh, brother.

I will always wonder what the kids thought with us turning around 5 (or 7) times and finally going past where we had been several times ("hmmm, this place looks familier !") before finally driving on. I call Jny with the directions we had and where he was to go, but he didn't answer, so I guessed (wrongly) that he was on his way already. AND he turned at the first blinking light and then came around the Lake the opposite way we had come ! Never heeded or needed my directions ! Somewhere in the middle of this kaos, my friends Kathy called and she was up near here, too, yet our activities wouldn't allow us to meet up with them.

We drove around "all the other loops" at the Marina before we found the one Blockey's had parked at. As soon as we arrived at the campsite, the kids were so glad to see familiar faces of their new friends, and were out of the car and guided to where they could change and put on their lifejackets & into the water where went to play in only a few minutes. I have a favorite video from this water play. I took many shots trying to get a good video, but as usual, the first one was still the best... They had quite a variety blow up spiders, whales or sharks and other wild floating animals to play with. Jny finally arrived about an hour later than I thought he would @ 7:30 p.m.

Then I called them in for a few minutes to eat a bit, because we hadn't had lunch and I figured we'd have dinner soon, so we had some Peanut Butter on pita bread---that was their big thing this weekend; they are good eaters, but have their preferred choices at lunch.

When we all gathered together for dinner @ 7:30 pm, they went for the hot dogs, ketchup, and chips as if they had been american all their life ! Then quickly, they went back to swimming and later, we went canoeing. As we were going around the point of land that protects the bay from the bigger portion of the lake, boats that were coming & going made the canoe rock. The kids didn't like that and all told me to turn around, "go back, go back" they said. Thank you to Jess for telling me what the kids were yelling about !! SO I told her to tell them it wasn't safe, that we had to go somewhere where it was safer to turn around which we did. It wasn't safe to do so right there, I had to keep going until I came to a quiet bay to we wouldn't risk tipping if we turned sideways into a wave. Then we went back, and got another batch of kids to take out for a ride. Johnny was taking Jmk out in his solo canoe. Looks like he enjoyed that.

What I found out was that the Philippine kids had a strange habit of (1) never taking off their underware,and (2) changing into dry clothes as soon as they got out of the water. Then they would change and get back into the water again. About 6 times that night. It was very warm out (too hot for me !) but they did get cold easily, so I kept moving their chairs into the sun light. Jlt didn't like swimsuits & the lifejacket at all, and yet, loved the water. But I really had to stress the safety first, because with so much going on and so many kids and so many people to visit with, I couldn't be watching her every moment. This is the first instance of her becoming like a donkey, and getting stubborn. What she didn't like to do, she didn't do, though sometimes she told us, "no like" so we at least knew why she was not doing it. So I told her that if she didn't want to wear the lifejacket, she needed to stay by the side of the water, on the beach. She pushed the limits and would go way down the beach and get out in the water deeper & deeper. Until she saw me looking at her. Because they were playing with their friends so much, she didn't seem to want me to bother her, otherwise I would have gone to play with them.

The scariest part of all this was her disappearing without telling me where she was going to. At first, I presumed she was hanging with girls in the big camper Blockey's had come in. But later that evening, the girls all went to the shower house for a shower, and she went along. The next morning when I couldn't find her, I would find out that is where she went, but again, without telling me, she would go over there several times to change, dress, comb her hair, or shower. I had no idea where it was, and couldn't go looking for her.

Next time I would vote for a smaller campground. But, the kids loved it here & played hard.

What was so Sad is that Sunday was so windy, that we didn't get to go out in the canoes much because it was so windy & waters were rough. I lolligagged (rested) in the morning and visited, then after lunch wanted to go when it was warmer. Jessica & the girls were like "when are we going canoeing?" and then when it got so windy after lunch, I wished I had taken them out ! I will always feel bad for being so tired I didn't what to move, because when afternoon came, and I wanted to go, I ended up taking another nap in the very hot tent because it just wasn't safe to go out on the lake in a canoe.

But for the kids, playing was alot of fun. Juliet spent some time in a chair combing the hair of the dolls she brought along --- a favorite pastime of hers. Breakfast was fun---Julie B. made pancakes in the motorhome which were very popular and I made scrambled eggs out in the sun on our table and everyone just shared whatever they had. Everyone else ate whatever they wanted. This is when I found out J & J liked pancakes, and so I would make that for them for breakfast a few times. Jmk had a sweet tooth for these. After so me more playtime, and some good visiting with other host families, it was time for lunch, other families showed up. I didn't know where they all came from. It was a busy day, I couldn't believe when it was time to go home. The day went so fast.