Pizza Picnic!!!

We home school all year round. That way when opportunities to travel or to entertain guests come up, we have the flexibility to adjust our schedule and adapt. Since we do school all year round, we also have the ability to go a bit lighter on Fridays.

We have also traditionally scheduled the many many orthodontist appointments the kids have had through the years on Fridays. On beautiful summer days like today, we indulge in one of our favorite treats: a pizza picnic. Little Caesars Pizza is just down the street from our orthodontist. Little Caesars sells their LARGE pizzas for a mere $5--perfect for an extra large family! Yippee!!! Yahoo!!! A super easy meal in the city's rose garden shared with one's favorite people...the blessings abounded!

I took advantage of the beautiful day and the green backdrop to practice my photography skills on three of the girls. I'll have to catch the others another time.

This pizza picnic was a quick one before other Friday appointments took precedence over fun and fellowship. We all sure enjoyed the return to a relished family tradition.

Kirsten and Matthew's Graduation and Future Plans

This weekend we celebrated the high school graduations of Kirsten and Matthew. Both of these kiddos are among the nine we've adopted from Russia. Both have been home schooled since the day we brought them home.

We adopted Kirsten Nadezhda in November 2010. She has no biological siblings, although now she has a houseful of siblings though adoption!

Kirsten is the only one of our nine Russian adoptees to have started high school in Russia and finished in America, and she didn't speak any English when she arrived. What an accomplishment! We're very proud of her!

Kirsten has had a lifelong passion for horses since living with her grandmother on a small farm in rural Russia as a little girl.

Kirsten's dream now that she's completed high school is to become a horse trainer. She hasn't yet settled on which school would be the best fit for her. As she continues her research, the Lord has provided a wonderful opportunity. Kirsten will be working for about two months this summer at a Christian Guest Ranch that is also a full time cattle spread with over 35,000 acres in western Nebraska. Most of her duties will include caring for the guests who come from around the world to ride in this "old west" setting.

Photo Credit ~ Faith Reynolds

Matthew Vladislav's adoptive story is nearly the opposite of Kirsten's. He was adopted at age five way back in 2001. He was the youngest of a trio of siblings. Zhenya and Sarah are his biological siblings. They were eight and seven, respectively.

When we began educating Matthew, we were scared! He was so far behind on what we thought every five-year-old should know. The most basic concepts eluded our new little boy. We wrestled with hopelessness and projected the worst in our minds. Math was by far his weakest subject.

That was Matt then. What a work the Lord has done in this young man! Matt is now a strong academic who loves to learn. Mathematics is now his strongest subject.

Matthew plays the piano but is an accomplished guitarist. He's also a vocalist and a song writer. He just plain loves to make music!

Despite his love of music, the yearning of Matt's heart will take him in a far different direction than the music field. Since he was a little boy, Matthew has dreamed of being a U.S. Marine Officer. Like Kirsten and her plans, we're not completely certain what the immediate path to the goal should be. We'll use this next year to solidify his plans. In the meantime, Matt would like to spend at least a couple of months on the missions field overseas. We figure this will be great preparation for the rigors of military life.

When the world thinks of older orphans, they often conceptualize lost causes. Now that four of our older Russian adoptees have graduated from high school, we would like to debunk that myth. Our kiddos have met their academic requirements, and they overflow with so many giftings that a career choice for each of them is difficult. God is so good. He does heal!