Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July from the Hays Family!

We had 3 days of celebrating and had a blast every day!

Celebration #1: We were invited by the Vandenbosch family to join in their annual 4th of July party. The Vandenboschs are Jenn Timmermans extended family. We had a wonderful BBQ and potluck and then fireworks began. Jenn's parents have their own land so they like to go firework crazy. The kids had fun lighting off smokebombs and sparklers while the big boys lit off the big ones!

Jacob

Micah

Naomi

Celebration #2: On Saturday Naval Station Everett opened the base to the public. Darrick was in charge of a lot of the event so we had to meet him there. The big draw for the public was to go on tours of the air craft carrier and destroyer. There were activities, performances and food. It was a fun day.



Celebration #3: After church we had a 4th of July BBQ potluck. It was yummy as usual. Then we joined families from church in the evening at the DeGroots house.

Art DeGroot is known at church as the "Peppermint Guy" and is one of Naomi's favorite people. Him and his wife Adria are so sweet and were wonderful hosts. They popped popcorn for everyone in their awesome popcorn machine. The guys hung around and talked.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset while we waited for it to get dark.

We had a fantastic view of the Navy Base and the Marina.

Their Home

There was lots of yummy food and a warm outdoor fire.

Karen Schier is very dear to our family. She has no grand kids and has adopted our kids as her own.

By the time it was time to watch fireworks we were all freezing! Welcome to summertime in Washington. Everyone tells us that summer in WA does not officially start until after the 4th of July. We will see, I have my doubts!

The fireworks were launched from a barge and started at 10:20 pm because it gets dark here so late in the summer!

It was a great 3 days of celebrating!

Pre-Deployment

This week it has started. We have a long list of Pre-Deployment stuff that we need to get done. There are the paper work things like a Power of Attorney. Every time he deploys we must get a new one. This week we also had to get new ID cards because they will expire while Darrick is gone. There are practical things to think about like getting the brakes done on the van and fixing things around the house.

Today we attended our Pre-Deployment Brief. In the past when Darrick has deployed on a ship, it is a big meeting for all of the families to attend. But since Darrick is being sent on an IA it was just us at the meeting. They make sure we are covering all the bases and getting things taken care of before Darrick leaves. They are also a support system for me while Darrick is deployed. We had to meet with two different people. One was the more practical stuff and the other was the more emotional stuff and they gave us a lot of info on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder...is that supposed to be comforting to me as we prepare for him to leave?!?

But we do appreciate what they gave the kids. They are called "Daddy Dolls". The point is to slide a picture of Darrick's face in the little window and then the kids can have Daddy with them.

Last night we watched a movie we got from Netflix called "Inside Guantanamo". It is a 2009 documentary that "chronicles the daily routines of captives and guards". It was very interesting and if you want to find out more what it will be like for Darrick over the next year, I highly recommend that you watch it.

Adoption Update

Darrick and I have been placing calls to our social worker for awhile, trying to find out the status of our adoption case. We couldn't get a hold of her so we finally called the agency. I guess they contacted her because we heard from our social worker today and we are frustrated and a bit angry.

She said she wanted to apologize to us. She has been having some personal problems in her marriage so she has not finished our report yet or turned it in to the licenser. She started it in January...grrr.

Our background checks came back from Hawaii over a month ago. So she tells us she will submit our packet to the licenser by the end of July and we should be ready to be matched with our kids in August. Well that is bad timing, Darrick leaves August 8.

I explained to her that Darrick is being deployed. In that case the state views me as a single parent for that year Darrick is gone. So she wants to place one foster child with us and then when Darrick gets back she can place another foster child with us. I reminded her that we do not want to do foster care, we want to adopt and we want to adopt siblings.

Lord, what do you want us to do here? How do we get to the kids you have chosen for us?

Opening Day at Jetty Island

Today, July 1, is the opening day of Jetty Island. Since moving here, we have heard a lot about it but were not really sure what it was all about. So the kids and I thought we would see what all the hype was about. When we got to the docks we found out that today the parking was free. Then you have to find a card for the time of the ferry that you get to ride. So we got 4 tickets for the 11:00 ferry.

We had a little time before our ferry so we walked out on the pier and were so excited to see a harbor seal.

.

Today, to kick off the opening of Jetty Island, the Pirates of Puget Sound were in attendance and ended up on our ferry!

In about 5 minutes you arrive at Jetty Island!

We attended the raising of the flags and the pirates made sure their flag was raised as well!

The pirates entertained us with some sword fights.

Then it was time to dig for buried treasure. They had an area where they buried all kinds of little treasures. We did not do very good and only found one pencil...but we sure tried.

At noon we attended a nature hike around the island. We learned a lot about the 5 different habitats on the island and about native plants. It was very interesting. We learned what an estuary is, saw a blue heron and a bald eagle.

After the nature hike we found a spot on the beach to hang out. There is a lot of driftwood to climb on and there was sand. It was also low tide and the kids wanted to walk out to the water. It took awhile and we talked about how we were like the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

At 3:00 we went to the mudflats scavenger hunt. Every person was given a shovel and we look for sea creatures. And we found some cool things!

Jacob was the first to find something!

He found a pink clam!

Then he found a worm that none of the naturalists could identify.

Micah found a crab.

Jacob found a ghost shrimp.

Before we knew it, it was time to board the 4:15 ferry back.

It was a fun day and the kids want to go back again tomorrow!