bahia kino November 30, 2007

After driving for two days in Mexico we finally saw the beach, we drove through the “Sonora” desert yesterday, we encountered perils roads with hundreds of cars that had crashed off of the cliffs with no guard rails in sight, I would say that was the scariest road I have ever driven on and its chilling to see cars and semi’s way way down the cliffs thousands of feet down, after driving down that crazy mountain we passed military will massive sub machine guns on the back off hum-vies pointed straight ahead they looked like mannequins.
We stayed the night in a gas station in Sonoyata, and ate at a great mexican food place.
Last night we finally made it to the beach a little after dark the town is called Bahia Kino its a pretty quiet town on the sea of Cortez its nice, we found a campground on the beach, our campsite was right on the beach, the kids slept in the tent and we slept in the van with Hope, we made pasta and greek salad, the kids woke us up at 6 screaming at the top of their lungs they decided to wrestle in the morning!!
Anna &Symeon and I went on a walk/run on the beach, we collected shells, all the kids went in the water it was quite warm even though its been raining since we got here.
The showers were hot and the bathrooms were”clean”.
D met a guy from LA that goes to Calvary.
And we got free internet at his hotel he works at.
Today we really don’t know were we are going yet, so we will see were we end up.

Viva la Mexico November 28, 2007

We leave for MX tomorrow we are in route now, currently at the Rip curl outlet in San Clemente buying rash guards.
Had lunch with the Lippke Brothers.
we made a mediterranean dinner for Ira last night, met Ira’s girlfriend on Sunday and drove to where the fires are in Malibu, had wood fire pizza next to the ocean, hung out with Nicoel at night.
C ya

LA LA November 25, 2007

Couple of two+ word sentences for the last couple of days.. Good food, bad kids, amazing views, first Ethiopian food for the kids, screaming, cozy home, killer stares from LA woman, Photos, good deals on makeup, wrinkles, laundry,orange trees, american girl I don’t quite know what to think of that store and their marketing.. panna cotta, near death driving, broken glass, baby dolls, friendly people, miss LA.

Road Trip November 23, 2007

This trip took some planning but mainly just us trying to wrap up everything at our house, we stayed up 2-3 nights till two or three in the morning.
When we left our house Monday it was freezing outside and raining, on our way out we stopped and got our favorite cheap thai food and Chocolate croissants, we stopped in portland to get some dinner at this Oromia, Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia food place, it was really good, they had these really good chicken meat pies kinda like a samosa, the kids loved it.
Our first night we found a place to stay in the parking lot of a Casino, everyone slept through the night without having to go to the bathroom,
I called the adoption agency they said we are at the top of the list and that there has been a couple of sibling groups that have come in but they are just waiting on their medical’s and child studies to come back in 2-4 weeks, so possibly some of those kids may be in the age range we are requesting!!!

once we were in Redding we decided to call some friends( My brothers ex vifes dad)
that had offered to have us stay at their house in Modesto, We arrived there at around ten PM, they have this awesome modern house on a bluff overlooking a river, their ceilings are all ten feet high, and each room looks like the most decadent exotic hotel room ever. they have 12 siberian husky dogs six of which are a four weeks old, Symeon got bit on the head and the ankle by the mother dog, and basil got bit as well!
They put on this big feast at like 12 at night for us and we stayed up talking and drinking wine.
Danielle is an amazing cook and decorator.
Tues. the kids played at the neighbors “playground”, their neighbor comes from a family of 12 kids and she said that she has 45 nieces and nephews!! She had adopted a little girl from china who is two, she said she has been interested in adoption from Ethiopia but she is not sure her husband will go for it.
Of course we had to stop at IN an Out on our way out!
We drove to Long beach to Samuel’s casa.
Samuel and I went shopping in the morning/afternoon most of us slept in till almost 11, we went to this swanky grocery store that we used to shop at when we lived in long beach, Samuel said it looked like a good place to get a date, for our thanksgiving we bought, fruit salad,penne pasta salad with spinach, ahi spicy tuna salad, ciabbata bread, brie, salami, wine, champagne, cherry tart, chocolate bunt cake, it was fun picking everything out.
I got to ride in Samuel’s sweet Audi TT, he’s way too cool!
We took our picnic to the park and the kids played in the sand and on the playground, we played baseball/kickball with a volley ball.
later we drove by our old houses.

Pura vita November 13, 2007

Dad Jude is biting my toes.. life with three boys is always interesting, Basil keeps asking me why we would want to go to Mexico for christmas, he keeps asking “but how are we going to have presents?”, so tonight as I was kissing and tucking him in he asked again ” why are we going to have christmas in Mexico, How are we going to have presents in Mexico”, I said we will have presents, He said “but how will Saint Nicholas bring us presents, how will he find us in Mexico, does he know where we are, there might be presents at our house” Symeon said “He’s a Christian, so God will tell him.” that seemed to satisfy him for now.
This time next week we will be heading for LA first to be with Samuel and Josiah, then we will head into Mexico, we may nail down some sort of itinerary or maybe not I like doing things pretty flexible, when we traveled Europe we had pretty much no idea about were we would stay at any given night, it was fun that way, we can sleep in our van or our tent regardless of what we find, and that would be a million times better then Europe with only our suitcases traveling on a train. we want to visit Mazatlan again where we went on our honeymoon, and go to “pura vida” the best vegetarian place ever, and Sayulita, and Guadalajara, guanajuato,San Miguel de Allende, and Zacatecas.
We hope to be back sometime after the first of next year.

Symeons New quilt November 5, 2007

Symeon picked out his fabric for the quilt he’s making, he has real distinct ideas of what he wanted I was able to “let” him chose his own fabric with no influence from me whatsoever, I really love what he chose!

Cozy Quilt November 3, 2007

This is what I am going to make with the lovely fabric sitting in piles all over the place
I love this fabric store in NY
http://www.purlsoho.com