York 5k on September 1st... it was so hot! 😩 Everyone's times increase on this course... Micah did great with a 21.44. He was 6th of the Trailblazer boys to cross and came in 13th out of 94. Both boys' and girls' Trailblazers teams won!
Even though Micah felt like dying here, he still has a little bit of a grin because he sees Riley just ahead of him. The girls race started exactly 14 minutes after the boys' race, and so the girls were going through their first loop (which crosses over the finish line) as the boys' were coming up to the finish line. So Micah got to pass Riley right before the finish line even though she still had most of the race to go. 😆
House of Agape... Ben spoke on the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, and then he and Micah led everyone in the song "No Longer Slaves." They LOVED it. The bus driver said the women sang it on the bus the whole way back to the women's shelter. We also had given blank cards to everyone at church the past Sunday (and at teen group that Friday) and told people to pray and write a word of encouragement in their card. Then we handed out the cards (with $10 Walmart gift cards in them) to the folks at House of Agape that night. It was so cool to see hear so many people exclaiming that what their card said was perfect for their situation. The ones the kids did seemed especially meaningful. The whole evening was just really cool.
Annual Fantasy Football Draft Party!
Ben had off work on Labor Day. We went to Cracker Barrel in the morning, but the wait was so long that Micah ended up leaving to grab something else and get to work at Publix by noon. When Micah got off work, we went to Barnes and Noble at the Pineville Mall. Micah worked on a paper for CC and the rest of us read or walked around the mall. We picked up steaks to grill on the way home and ended the night with some AFV. A pretty good day!
Abby and I went looking for Ben and Caleb at the mall and spotted Caleb through the window sitting in a "gaming chair" at Game Stop.
Abby had a few little spots of hives at House of Agape Saturday, so I gave her an allergy pill, thinking she came in contact with something unusual. A few mornings later, she woke up with hives EVERYWHERE. The doctor said just to keep her on allergy medication for 10 days and then take her off to see what happens. She may have to see an allergist if we can't figure out what she's allergic too. (As far as we can tell, nothing had changed that she was exposed to!)
At Abby's CC class, the girls discovered an old-fashioned pencil sharpener on the wall. None of them knew what it was. 😆 Everyone was fascinated taking turns on it.
On Friday, September 9th, we had a water pipe leak in the garage. Ben heard the water in the wall when he went into the garage to put on his shoes, and the strip of carpet laying on the ground was sopping wet. After a scramble to turn off the water to the house, we realized Ben must have caught it soon after the leak started and the only damage was to a little spot on the wall in the garage. We called the plumber, who got there a little after 4 pm. He fixed the pipe, but also told us that all that all the pipes in our house were defective (plex pipe pipes that everyone used when they were building houses about 20 years ago, but come to find out that around 20 years in, all the pipes deteriorate and get pin holes in them.) It's true that all the houses in our neighborhood have problems with the pipes. The only real solution is to actually replace all the plumbing or else leaks will keep happening.. He gave us a quote of $20,000- $25,000 for that... which obviously won't happen anytime soon, and which we will get other quotes for!
The funny thing, though, is that when we discovered the leak, Ben said, "You know what this means, right? The twins are getting their passports!" (Our friends, the Thompsons, told us that the closer they got to bringing their kids home from Ethiopia, the more things broke at their house.) Sure enough, as I was walking in from the garage immediately after the plumber gave us that bad news, Carolina Adoption Services called my phone. They said Abel, our lawyer, had picked up the passports, and on Monday, he would take the passports to the US Embassy. They estimated just a few days to get the visas and exit letter, and she said that we would probably be ready to buy plane tickets by the end of the week.
Since we didn't have water that day, Micah went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to shower after cross-country practice and then do some school. I texted him to let him know we were going to Panera to eat lunch and work on some school before I took Abby to the doctor for her hives. (That way we could actually use a toilet we were able to flush!) Wes and Joyce ended up coming along, so we had a nice little lunch together. :)
Northwestern 5k! This was a big one, and it POURED rain for the first part of the races. Micah had originally been lamenting that the varsity boys ran last when it would be hotter in the day. (At most morning meets, varsity boys run first when it's still cooler, but they did it backwards at the Trojan Invitational.) So the JV teams ended up running in pouring rain, while the varsity ran in some light sprinkles (and a lot of mud!)
He got a time of 20:38 and was 91st out 131 Varsity boys.
In Caleb's Challenge A class, they are working on drawing the USA from memory, so Ms. Carole snatched Micah and Isaac, who did Challenge A three years ago, to see how much they still remember. Pretty impressive for 3 year later!
Micah with CC friends at Jax's birthday party:
Trying out virtual reality at Jax's house:
Our 19th anniversary was on September 13! We had already gone out to a nice dinner on September 2nd, thinking that we might no get a chance to go out for our anniversary because of Haiti/the twins. But, alas, (or fortunately?) we still got to go out to eat and then get some ice cream on our actual anniversary. Then I hurried home to look over notes since I was subbing for Challenge 1 the next day.
Challenge 2 did a debate on whether or not art museums should be free to everyone. Micah was on the affirmative team and did great! (It was a much easier topic to wrap your brain around than last year's topics of the electoral college and imports/exports.)
What a fun class. :) Subbing for Challenge 1 this same day made me appreciate Micah's class all the more! 😆
Caleb working on his USA assessment in Challenge A:
Since we were thinking Caleb's birthday might happen after the twins came home, we decided to plan an early birthday party for him and some friends. 4 kids from CC came over on a Thursday... we ate pizza for lunch, then I took them all to Adventure Air and out to Pelican's for snow balls. It was a super fun day for him!
Hare and Hounds race at McAlpine Park! This race is HUGE and the dusty road makes it not so fun. Micah had a rough race, running about a minute slower than he normally would have. His legs just didn't have the energy... maybe because he had just run a 20:40 5k around our neighborhood a couple days before "just for fun." 😜 He got a 21:32 on this race.
Varsity boys just before "take off":
Nathan and Scott, two of Micah's closest friends, finished super close together and were in 15th place (Scott, at 17:20.7) and 17th (Nathan, 17:23.5)
Riley Shope (another BFF) got 2nd place in the girls' varsity, just two seconds after the leader. (She had a 19:41.8)
Angie Mohr sent me these quilts that she made for the twins. I LOVE THEM so much! What an awesome surprise!!!
Micah had a movie and ice cream night with his friends (The Princess Bride... Micah got out-voted.) 😆
Riley and Helen were going to be late, so everyone else plotted several different ways to trick them or mess with them. They settled on an awkward "synchronized chip crunch"... I videoed the "run through" so they could perfect their form. 😆
House church Sunday. We got to host (which we hadn't for a while since we kept ourselves off the schedule assuming we would be newly home with the twins.) The text was on Moses holding up his arms during the battle with the Amalekites. So we challenged everyone to keep their arms raised above their heads while the text was read. :)
I got these pictures this month from a woman in Germany who adopted two little girls from the same creche as the twins. (One of the girls was Sephise, the little cutie both our boys loved.) This was a picture taken probably in March, so it was a few months back, but I still love it. Look how much food is under our twins' chairs! I think we will need to get a dog just to clean up what they spill!
This one makes me laugh. I don't know which twin is holding the other one's nose, but if I had to guess, it's Marvel honking Marven's nose. 😅
Race at Clover High School. It was still hot that day, but not as humid. Micah likes the course and felt good during his run. He ran 21:02. This is a fun race for spectators because we get to see them pass by several times during the race.
Micah went to Moe's with friends after the race. Looks like they had fun!
Picture Ms. Carole sends us from Challenge A... oh dear!
Practicing drawing Central America and the Caribbean...
We had a Zoom call with the twins on Saturday the 24th. We asked the translator to not let them have toys for the first 15 minutes so they would watch us instead. We tried pulling out all the songs and tricks again... they just stared at us like we were crazy. 😆 Of course, later when the translator flipped the phone around, we noticed he was wearing earbuds, so I don't actually know if the boys were hearing us or not. 🤷 When they got bored, they made faces to their nanny off-camera and started grabbing each other's noses. At the end of the Zoom call, they were standing at the doorway calling down to "Philippe!"
We asked for some photos of the other kids so we could have them for the twins. Evidently, after the call, he gathered them all up in a group so we could get some photos...
Caleb turns 13!!! Friday, September 23... first he went to Waffle House with Dad for breakfast (as is tradition!), then came back and opened his presents. (And had to let Abby hug him because she gave him presents.) :)
During the day, Micah took Caleb to the YMCA to work out and then to Taco Bell for lunch.
We were going to go out to eat that evening and then play mini-golf, but we changed plans and Ben grilled steaks instead. Then it got late, so Caleb decided he wanted us all to watch End Game (Avenger's move) again. We DID go play mini-golf Saturday afternoon then.
Caleb also found out he grew 4 inches in the past year. He is now an inch taller than Micah was when Micah turned 13! Caleb has always been at least an inch behind Micah each birthday.
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| Micah got a hole in one on this hole! |
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| On this hole, you have to spin the wheel to see what kind of "obstacle" you have to do (or make others do.) Micah to make a shot with the putter behind his back AND Ben acting as an extra obstacle. 😆 |
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| Hole in one for the birthday boy too! |
Just because Abby looked so cute at CC :)
Micah had his best race yet at Metrolina on Tuesday, September 27! He finally reached his goal of breaking 20 minutes! They didn't have a clock set up, so we were just timing him on our phones. Micah was really sore from playing flag football hard two days before. He wasn't wearing his watch, so he didn't really know what time he was at coming into the final stretch. We started screaming like crazy because we saw he could make it. He said up until that point, he thought he wasn't going to get it because the two guys in front of him (Jude Knighten and Jonathan Hare) had never broken 20 before either. And I don't think Jonathon had ever beaten Micah before. So Micah said it wasn't until he heard me screeching at the top of my lungs that he realized he could actually still get it. He poured it on at the end and came in JUST under 20 minutes. We thought it was 19.57 or 19.58, but didn't know for sure until the next day when they released the official results. What a relief that he actually DID get under 20 so he didn't have to give back the coveted "flower bucket hat." 😆
(The pictures loaded backward again.)
Ben's timing was actually right-on!
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| Pushing it to the finish line! |
The three guys who earned their bucket hats - Jude, Micah, and Jonathon!
Eating at Moe's afterward...
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| Out little midget daughter! (Who is actually on her knees.) 😆 |
The Bucket Hat people, minus Scott and Josh...
Ben was a better parent than me... he gave Micah a big bear hug right after he finished the race. I was like, "High fives and fist bumps! I'll hug you when you're less sweaty!" 😆
Proof that Abby and I can also run. Slowly, and I hurt my knee before even hitting a mile, but I still ran! 😆
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Seizing the end of summer!
Corporate gathering... we thought we would be newly-home with the twins, so Ben had arranged for others to lead. So he got to sit beside me in church! This is the first time we had a corporate gathering at Pathways when Ben had no responsibilities! (Except for if we are traveling to Maryland or something.) Some of the kids and teens had to read the Scripture for the day: |
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| Micah looks super thrilled to be up there waiting to read. :) |
Science experiments at CC:
Wes and Joyce came back from a visit to Ohio, and had us over for dinner to celebrate Caleb's birthday a little late. He requested spaghetti and peach cobbler. :)
"Hurricane" Ian passed through on Friday, September 30th. It was a tropical storm by the time it got to us.... just lots of rain and about 4-6 hours of heavier winds. No damage besides small limbs here and there. We lost power for about an hour in the morning, and lights flickered here and there in the evening, but that was it! It really messed up parts of Florida on Thursday, including Arcadia. (It made landfall in Fort Myers, just 2 mph shy of a category 5.)
I always order groceries on Thursday, but Walmart was out of bread and milk, so we stopped by Food Lion. I sent Ben this picture and told him we were actually the "cliche" hurricane people... must get bread and milk! (And Oreos.) :)
Finally cool enough for blankets on the porch in the morning!
The most exciting news of the month: On Thursday, September 29, we got word that Abel, our attorney in Haiti, finally got to the US Embassy to deliver our passports and fees. The next morning, we heard the visas were done, and by the afternoon, Abel picked them up! Such amazing breakthrough! Now we just need the exit letter from IBESR... if he can get that by Monday or Tuesday (October 3rd or 4th), we could possibly travel to get the twins on Friday, October 7th!
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