Vacation week

This week will be full of adventures, since Peter has some vacation days. Yesterday and today, we played at a water park about an hour from our city. Anya Rashi and the boys had so much fun. It was also my sister's day off yesterday, so Alicia came for the afternoon too. The boys spent most of their time on the water slides, and everyone had pruney fingers and toes.

The whole adventure was a Christmas gift from Peter's brother Mark. In their family, each family exchanges names, and we all think of a gift for the entire family whose name we've drawn. When there are seven siblings, it helps cut down the Christmas chaos a little bit!

Anya Rashi is pretty fearless about getting her face and head wet, so she had a ton of fun. There was a 1,000-gallon bucket that dumped out every 5-10 minutes, and she loved watching it! We didn't go under the waterfall it created, but she got so excited every time the warning bell sounded. Each day when we left the park, she pointed back toward the park and said "Wa-wa! Wa-wa!" about 20 times.

We met a family there who adopted both of their children from Russia nearly eight years ago. They were supposed to stay in Russia for two weeks, but due to some governmental difficulties, ended up staying for 40 days! It made us even more grateful for all the behind-the-scenes work done by Dillon International, and Ms. Roy, our orphanage director.

It was fun to be approached by them -- they were very excited for us, and had much to offer about how to talk to older children about being adopted. By becoming part of the adoption community, our world has really expanded in so many unexpected ways.

The other photos were taken during a walk in our neighborhood. They were just too cute not to post!