Time to Celebrate!

We decided that every year to celebrate Naomi's adoption day we would have pizza and then an ice cream cake! She was so excited when she saw that the cake had the Disney Princesses on it! She wanted to make sure that her piece had Cinderella on it-her favorite Princess. Happy Adoption Day Naomi!

Happy Adoption Day!

It is hard to believe that a whole year has gone by since we adopted Naomi! God has blessed us so much as a family and we can't imagine life without our sweet girl. She brought "more girly-ness" to our family and has brought out the softer side in all the boys. Finally having a daughter is better then I imagined! We love you Naomi!


Here are some of our favorite pictures of Naomi from the past year!







These next few pictures were taken at the orphanage before we adopted her. They are so precious to us because they are the only pictures we have of her before she came into our lives.

Friday Exploration Day

This Friday for our exploration day we decided to head to Whidbey Island. But our first order of business was to get the kids some winter gear. It is getting pretty cold and our even our warmest Hawaii sweatshirts are not keeping them warm. We went to JC Penney and were so excited when we walked in and discovered they were having a 50% off winter gear sale!!! The kids were so excited to get their coat, beanie and mittens. The sales lady even commented on it and we had to explain that we lived in Hawaii the past 5 years and these were their first winter coats! The sales lady cut all the tags off so they could wear them right away.

Then it was time for our adventure! We had a beautiful drive through a lot of farmland. When it was time to go over to the island we first had to travel over Deception Pass. It was stunning. The water flowing under it was rushing pretty fast and the views were awesome.

Then it was time to drive over it! I don't like heights at all but the view was so awesome I didn't even think about how up we were.

Our destination was Oak Harbor. But when we got there it was SO freezing with the wind coming off the water. We just took a few pictures, checked out a cool windmill and jumped back in the car!

We drove from the top to the bottom of Whidbey Island. It got a little long for the kids but Darrick and I enjoyed it. We had planned a surprise for the kids at the end of our journey so that helped them stick it out. The surprise was that we were going to ride a ferry back home! When we got there we had about 20 minutes before we could get on the ferry so we took a few pictures. Cars had to wait in different lanes until it was our turn to drive onto the ferry. A big storm was coming so we were glad to get going.

The kids loved driving the car onto the ferry and the boys couldn't wait until we could get out and look around. Naomi was scared and held on tight to Darrick.

We went to the front of the Ferry to watch us leave but soon went inside because of the cold.

The kids enjoyed looking around and out the windows. It was only a 15 minute ride. Then we drove back off and traveled home.

Andrew and Cheptoo's wedding

Today we were able to attend the wedding of our friends from church, Andrew and Cheptoo. They will be having a larger ceremony when their families from Africa can attend. Today was small and intimate. It took place in their home. It was a beautiful ceremony and afterword we all enjoyed a huge African feast!