So much fun we can hardly stand it!

This week has been great.  A friend of Josh's  & Cate's (from King's Garden in the Philippines) was adopted to Florida.  This little guy is John Michael Diez and he was Josh's best friend back in his children's home.  Both boys are 11 and grew up together for the first 10 years of their lives.  Well John Michael came to visit.  His adoptive family was in IN visiting grandparents and they called us so we got the kids together. Michael (as they call him) came and spent a night with Josh & Cate.  It really was so fun to see the kids together.  We really had a blast with Michael and can't wait to see him again.

We spent one day swimming and climbing the wall at our YMCA.  These guys are all great climbers!

We spent the 2nd day at our lake cottage and Michael learned how to kneeboard.  He is a natural born athlete just like Josh & Cate.  Lots of fun on the water!

 Good bye Michael and Mom Diane. It was great to see you!

Cate and Mommy had some girl time and Cate got her first manicure and painted nails!  The biggest issues was sitting still.  Cate is a wiggler and sitting too long in one place is not her style.

We had our last Wildcat baseball game.  The kids both enjoyed their season.

We had some rainy weather so one day they each took a friend and we did lunch and a movie.  It was nice to see their friends, Isaiah and Analiece again.

Fishing in our backyard is always a fun time.  We have some big fish in our pond. 

Daddy Jeff took a couple of days off and we headed to the lake.  It was really nice to have our Dad around more.  We were blessed with some kid skiis from our friends, the Schenkels, and both Josh & Cate learned to ski.  Thank you Scott & Shelly!  We really enjoyed teaching Josh & Cate to ski and seeing them be successful. 

It was a fun fun week and we were blessed by so many others.  Thanks for continuing to pray for us.  We love knowing we are being prayed for and this really helps us to focus on ...

Choosing joy,
Chris & crew

Gotcha Day!

This week we celebrated the 1 year anniversary of Josh & Cate coming to the USA to be in our Clark family.  We had a quiet celebration with just us 4 but we loved making it fun and special.  We had cupcakes with candles and pretended like it was their 1st birthday celebration.  We told Josh & Cate many parents let their 1 year olds smear their birthday cake all over them because they are messy when they are little.  We decided it was ok to let Josh & Cate do this since we didn't know them when they were really 1 year old and we missed all that fun together.  Here are those fun photos!

You can see they got a little carried away but had a great time.  Mom & Dad did not participate in this little ritual!

Then we decided to start of tradition of making banana boat somemores on the grill.  Some great friends (Thanks Porter family) gave us this recipe so we gave it a try.  The kids loved peeling back a section of the banana peel and stuffing the banana groove with marshmellows and chocolate chips.  It was great fun and tasted good too.

This past week Josh and Cate attended a daycamp that our church, The Chapel, brought to town.  It was a great week.  Springhill Day Camp knows how to combine Christ and fun.  They had kids climbing a big wall and then asking them where they saw God as they climbed high or where was God when they were zooming down the big water slide.  It really was a fun fun week for everyone.

On the last day Springhill couselors gave each camper a word that best describes them.  Josh's word was "committment" and his bible verse was Matthew 25:21.   Cate's word was "curiosity" because she was constantly asking questions.  Her verse was Proverbs 19:20.  The staff did a great job at incorporating God into every aspect of the week.  Thank you Springhill.

On Saturday we were blessed by Lisa & Paul Phillips as they invited us to join their family at their neighborhood pool.  Josh & Cassie Jarrard were there also.  It was a lot of fun to see the Phillips family (Mya, Luke & Jacob adopted from China) along with Big Josh and Miss Cassie.  Thanks Lisa and Paul.

We ended our week with a picnic with Grandma at the lake cottage. 

It's been another good week.  Thanks for reading the blog and please continue praying for our family.  We are thankful for the prayers and support of our friends and family.  We head towards the end of July and as always continue...

Choosing joy,
Chris & crew